


On the Diagonal

by Argleblather



Category: The Stand - Stephen King
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, F/M, Politics, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 40,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21623509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argleblather/pseuds/Argleblather
Summary: When Nick Andros begins to feel hemmed in with the growing population and responsibilities in Boulder, he discovers that not everyone is so eager to rebuild society as it used to be.
Relationships: Nick Andros/Original female character
Kudos: 3





	1. On the diagonal

Nick stood at the edge of Main street, looking back over Boulder's main thoroughfare. A few people were milling about, stretched out on the town common or just picking through the open storefronts for necessities. Most people however, were occupied at the power plant, working at winding copper wire around the generators, or on the cleanup crews, shoveling dead bodies into trucks and mass graves. A third faction prowled the mountains and forests searching for Mother Abagail. It seemed that there were plenty of jobs available to those who wanted them, and not nearly enough hands to do all the work. With the other members of the committee thus occupied, Nick found himself at somewhat of a loss.

Searching for Mother Abagail he'd be pure useless, unable to hear a call or respond to a walkie-talkie, or make a call on one. And he’d have to be on foot, not a motorcycle like the rest of the search party. He'd debated learning to ride a motorcycle, but the thought of crashing it, farther out than he would get on a bike and being unable to call for help, or running headlong into a car he couldn't hear coming gave him a queasy unsettled, feeling in the pit of his stomach. No, the bike would have to do.

The power plant was a similar situation. He’d been out with Brad Kitchener earlier, helping supervise, but the crew only needed so many “chiefs” as Ralph said. When the plant was up and running, the machinery was rigged to set off warning lights, but until things were up and running, all of the emergency communication was still auditory. He had thought about the clean up crew, but was afraid that without the interaction of other voices, other people, the constant press of dead bodies around him would drive him nuts. Not to mention his lingering distaste for working alongside Harold Lauder. Maybe he wasn’t truly dangerous, but Nick still didn’t care for him much. Today was a rare day when he didn’t have a project to work on, and he felt restless and ill at ease. Without something concrete to focus his energies on, he felt more aware of the growing population of people around him. Initially, he'd craved the contact with other people, and when it had been he, and Tom, and Ralph and Dick- that had been fine. Comfortable. Now there were as, many unfamiliar faces in Boulder as there were familiar ones, with more new ones coming in every day. And they all seemed to look to the committee for guidance. First they came, asked for Mother Abagail, and then wanted to know who was in charge- and looked at him. It was enough to make him long for the days between Shoyo and May when he’d only been accountable for himself. 

He sat on the bench in front of the drugstore and watched those people walking across the common. The gregarious, ready way that humans paired off wasn't lost on Nick. A good deal of the men and women who arrived in Boulder were already spoken for, hitched to someone they had been traveling with, like Larry and Lucy, or Stu and Fran. Nick thought uncomfortably of Julie Lawry, a little disgusted with himself, but too realistic to presume that beggars could be choosers. He supposed, that so long as he was wandering around, before the plague, it had been easy to presume that he was solitary because he never stayed long in one place. Now however, he wondered if that had really been the case. If maybe there was something more fundamentally flawed in him- aside from being deaf and mute- that would ensure he would remain solitary, while he watched the rest of the world pair up around him. _No, that’s not fair,_ he thought, _I’ll always have Tom. He needs me. _Still, Tom’s friendship wasn’t quite the kind of companionship he found himself missing as he watched a couple in their mid thirties settle under a tree, the man- Aaron something-or-other, he recalled, fluffing out a red and white checked cloth for them to sit on.

He wondered to himself, not for the first time, if he was doomed to having his sexual encounters reduced to curiosity in the Free Zone as they often had been before the flu. Not that those had been so easy to come by either. Mostly women he met traveling, sometimes those who picked him up hitchhiking, or random encounters, like Julie Lawry, who wanted to know if his dick worked normally, or if whatever had affected his ears and throat extended to that region as well. It didn't, which he could have told them, if they'd have asked. But it wasn't the kind of thing people ever asked. Julie had been a rude anomaly in that regard. Everything worked properly, and he was young, as much in his prime as he would ever be.

Shaking the uncomfortable thoughts off, Nick rose, still feeling a jangling sense of disquiet in his limbs. He debated perusing Boulder's bookstores for something else to add to his small library, and hesitated. The bookstores had been pretty well picked over by the town's residents, desperate for entertainment as much as they were for light and food. And in some ways, he felt obligated to leave books in the stores for other members who might need them more. And half of the stores were empty, the shelves were now husks, empty of the collections they had once held. Still, he straddled his bike, looking off into space contemplatively, his dark eyes far away in thought. _Longmont isn't that far from here. I can bike there and back in a day easily. And I'm sure it's not going to be as picked over as anywhere here in Boulder. And there's people in and out of there pretty regularly. _With that thought in mind, assuaging his concerns about ending up stranded without the ability to call for help, he turned then pedaled toward the diagonal, heading north east at a decent clip.

It was a little over ten miles from the edge of Boulder to the main street in Longmont, and nearly lunchtime, the sun high in the sky by the time Nick arrived and he wished he'd had the forethought to bring something from home to eat. True, he could always find something, some stored food in a grocery store, but it wasn't the same really as packing a meal on purpose. To him, it felt too much like foraging, and those uncertain days between the onset of the flu and finding Mother Abagail. 

His first stop, was the local grocery, where he liberated some packages of saltines and crackers, and spray cheese. He rounded out the meal with six oreos, packing another half dozen or so away to snack on when he rode home. He washed his lunch down with a warm Pepsi, enjoyed leaning against the front of the store. He wasn’t sure if it was indulgent or not, but it felt good to be out on his own, independent. He felt free, for the first time in a long time, watching the dust devils blow across the wide empty main street. The solitude didn’t worry him as much now, knowing that there were still other people, that he wasn’t the only one. And the dreams had ceased weeks ago. Upon meeting others, the fear that he’d been going mad was quickly assuaged. Or else they were all going mad in the same way. With that anxiety laid aside, the peace was refreshing. Nick let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding and turned his face up to the afternoon sun.

Halfway down mainstreet, among the shells of a pawn shop, and what had been an art gallery, filled with the dusty remnants of long dead folk artistry, he found a used book store that had what he wanted, shelves lined with everything he could hope to read, including an extensive sci-fi section. _Everyone who wrote ever wrote a book is now dead._ The thought gave him a chill and he shuddered coldly. Thankfully, the thought was easily brushed away, and he began perusing the stacks, loading up on new paperbacks, and a hardback book on government and political policies in the United States around the turn of the century. He wasn’t sure if that last would be useful or not, but he figured it couldn’t hurt. There was the meeting with Al Bundell coming up later this week, and he thought it wouldn’t be a good idea to have some information about law development on hand.

With his load settled comfortably against his back, Nick mounted his bike, and headed farther down main street, past the bookstore and a few empty insurance agencies. He had an idea to take some of the winding back roads on the way back. Since he was sixteen, he’d been on the move, and was accustomed to being active on a daily basis and he hadn’t realized how much he missed that aspect of life, while living in Boulder. It would take longer, maybe two hours to get home on the farm roads, but it would also give him a chance to actually see some of the scenery in between places, heading up to the mountains.

_I wonder if anyone ever just- stops to look at the country anymore? We were all so busy looking for other people, we stopped looking at anything else around us. I think Mother Abagail would have something to say about that, about our relationship to the land. _His mind wandered over this territory, and where Mother Abagail might have gotten to. He was saddened and confused by her disappearance, more than most, maybe. It seemed a waste to him, to lose a person who was- had been such a powerful force in drawing them all together, simply because of a perceived guilt trip from God. _If there even is such a thing._ In spite of everything that had happened, Nick remained unconvinced. He was willing to accept the reality of the Dark Man, the Walkin’ Dude, as an actuality, because Mother Abagail was a real person. But an agent of the Devil? Were they on a religious quest? _No. I don’t think so. I don’t believe that._

Thus lost in thought, he almost missed the stalking grey shapes passing the field to his right, about 50 yards away from where the asphalt sloped into a drainage ditch, the field stretching out to a farmhouse and barn, the door flapping open in the light breeze.He froze, his bike skidding a little at the sudden halt in momentum, his pulsing into his ears. He reached to his hip and mentally cursed himself, he hadn’t even brought his pistol, the revolver he’d carted all the way from Shoyo, with him on this trip. _It serves you right, get eaten by wolves and no one even knows you’re out here. You’re a damned fool for coming out here on your own._ A hot loose feeling settled in his groin as he watched the small wolf pack stalking across the overgrown hay field. Off in the distance, a few cattle lowed nervously and shuffled farther away from the canines.

The wolves had something other in mind than the cattle far afield however, they seemed intently focused on some movement in the waist-high grass, growing brown and dry from lack of irrigation. Nick watched the silent play, captivated, praying that their attention would remain focused. He willed himself to move on, to get away before he was noticed, but he couldn’t seem to make his legs work. He remained glued in the center of the road, fixated, heart pounding. His attention was focused on the three wolves padding through the grass, and as he watched, one of them dropped cold, a third black eye- a hole appearing between its eyes and the other two crouched low, becoming almost invisible in the grass. He looked, to see where the shot had come from, and saw a figure stand, rifle held to its shoulder. The figure was covered mostly in a dark hooded sweatshirt, sleeves pushed up, revealing skinny red-streaked arms, face hidden from view, and it raised the rifle to the sky. If Nick had been able, he would have heard a stream of obscenities skating across the afternoon air.

“HAAAH! Motherfucker, YAAH! What now, huh cocksucker! What NOW!”

To his surprise, rather than cutting and running from the other two wolves, capitalizing on their stunned hesitation, the figure raced forward, brandishing what Nick could have sworn was a bayonet, or a machete. Seeing the two wolves, unafraid of this lone madman crouch, ready to spring, finally set Nick to motion. Not away from the fray, but toward it. He dropped the bike and ran into the field, waving his hands frantically, hoping, somewhere in the back of his mind to give the other figure enough time to reload before the wolves could spring. If he could have cried out, he would have, instead settling for making as much of a presence as he could, hoping to draw the animals off.

The figure turned toward the man running across the field, grasping quickly what his purpose was. Although it might get him killed. Would probably get him killed, in fact. Unsure about the bloody figure with the weapon, who had already killed one of them, the wolves turned toward the newcomer with a snarl. The hooded figure thumbed two more slugs into the rifle, firing both barrels at the farthest wolf, the one closest to the dark haired man. It fell, shoulder and leg blown away in a bloody spatter. Not dead, but mortally wounded. Nick stopped short, saw one of the wolves fall in a bleeding heap. He gaped, then turned, seeing the other wolf close upon him and turned back toward the road, sprinting for all he was worth. His breath rasped sharply in his chest, feeling like sandpaper drawn across his lungs. He dared not look back around, ready to feel either bullets racing through his body, or sharp teeth pulling at the back of his neck with deadly urgency. It occurred to him to wonder if the figure had been sent from the dark man, some lone space cowboy creeping along the diagonal to Boulder. Would an agent of the dark man be allowed to kill his other minions?

The remaining wolf raced behind him with eager grinning glee, bounding through the standing hay. It didn't growl, its paces were deadly and silent, whatever it had been stalking in the grass forgotten in the light of moving prey. Unseen behind the two runners engaged in a race for Nick's life, the hooded figure sprinted after them, machete raised, crying out a war whoop echoing across the field. Nick panted; his heart thudding painfully in his chest. His vision whammed in and out, arms and legs pistoning frantically as he sprinted for the road. At first, he wasn't sure if the bolt of tearing pain up his calf was a cramp or not, until he felt heat running down his leg, soaking into his jeans. _No- _His mind panted frantically, _No, no, no- is this what happens? What the hell was the point of out all? Crossing the country on foot, on a bike, only to be torn down by a wolf 10 miles from home? Because I started to feel a little boxed in? _In his panic, and terror he'd forgotten the stranger. He stumbled, fell, sprawled on the crunching carpet of hay, his face twisted in a rictus of pain and dismayed terror. He waited for the wolf's teeth to sink into his neck, clawing at the dry soil.

The bite didn't come, and when Nick looked back, he saw why. The stranger had abandoned the rifle, giving chase as well, and had hacked at the wolf’s spine with what Nick was now able to identify as a machete. It was standing over the prone body of the wolf,which was still writhing and snarling, a bloody machete raised over its hooded head. As he watched, the machete came down, severing the wolf’s head with a _chunk_ that Nick felt from his position on the ground. For a moment there was no movement from either party. Then, the stranger pushed back the hood and revealed herself to be female, with a rather short pointed nose and tanned skin, and high cheekbones, peeling with the remains of sunburn. Her pale grey eyes were bright with adrenaline and exaltation. She crouched, lifted the shaggy wolf's head by the scruff and held it to the sky, her lips peeled back in a wild, ululating cry of victory, and her short dark hair whipped around her face. As he watched, she held the head up, waving it back and forth, then drop kicked it, sending it into the field like a furry soccer ball. Aghast, Nick held his position on the ground, uncertain of his fate regarding the madwoman. He wasn’t sure if he should flee or anticipate help from her. Without examining his wound, he wasn’t sure if he _could_ flee. She turned to him and offered one hand to him, the, palm streaked with red tacky blood. He looked up at her uncertainly before taking the offered hand.

"Shit, are you okay? Did it get you?" Nick saw her lips frame the words and nodded. He staggered to his feet, lifting his injured leg a little to keep weight off it. The grip that helped him to his feet was strong, her hands cool under the tacky glove of blood. He looked down his torn pant leg, and was dismayed to see it red below the knee, coating the back of his calf.

_There's no way I can bike back like this. _He tested the leg and a bolt of pain raced up his leg, spreading from the bite on his calf outward.

"Well, cock. Okay, can you gimp on over this way?" She took a step back and jerked her head in the direction she had come from. "I can give you a hand-" again, Nick nodded, and without the ability to write, he was incommunicado, as he had been so many years ago, before the flu, before Rudy, reduced to what simple pantomimes he could do with one hand.

Standing, he saw the woman was about six inches shorter than he was, and leaning on her for help felt a little awkward. He accepted the help though. The pain in his leg was savage, not as bad as the bullet graze, he was afraid he would need stitches. Or that the wolf had been rabid. Madly he wondered if George Richardson back in Boulder had any of those shots to treat rabies on hand.

Together, they picked their way slowly past one, two, three dead wolves, stretched out still and somehow hollow, all threat of attack negated. Nick saw as they approached the place the woman had come from what had drawn the wolves. Stripped of its hide and partially butchered was the carcass of a longhorn steer, meat from it stacked neatly on a clean blue tarp next to the body. In front of the half-dismantled carcass was a large white book, with a diagram explaining about beef grades, and depicting the carcass of a cow, with the cuts of meat separated and described. She lead him to a white hulking truck, hip deep in hay, mostly hidden behind the barn. The truck was a massive Chevy, equipped with off-road tires, splattered with mud up to the door handles in places, the truck bed open and facing the carcass. The woman hoisted herself up and opened up the storage box near the cab, pulling out a smaller white box with a red cross on it. A first aid kit. Nick breathed an unconscious sigh of relief. He had no desire to risk infection again. The woman sat on the tailgate of the truck and offered Nick a hand, helping him climb up next to her.

“Okay, hang on.” She opened the kit, and pulled out some pain relieving tablets and pressed the paper packet into Nick’s hand, “take those first.” Nick swallowed them dry, crumpling the paper packet in his hand. Next she rummaged out a pair of blunt-tipped scissors and used them to cut up the side of Nick’s pant-leg to examine the wound. He craned his neck to see, and saw the tight press of her lips instead. She worked quickly, efficiently and poured first half a bottle of water from the storage box over the wound, rinsing it off. The wound looked ugly, the wolf’s teeth had attempted to chew a piece out of the lower part of Nick’s calf, and his sock was stained dark maroon with blood. Sharp teeth had attempted to tear at the muscle, and Nick saw that if it had been an inch or two closer it would have succeeded in dragging him down by the Achilles tendon and crippling him, not just wounding him. Ignorant of Nick’s grimace over his wound, she focused on a brown bottle of peroxide, which she opened and poured over Nick’s wound. It bubbled furiously and Nick winced, gritting his teeth. “I know, I know.” The woman shook her head and unwrapped a piece of sterile gauze to dress the wound and stop the blood flow as much as possible. “Press on that.” With her head bent, Nick missed the sense of her words and she grabbed his hand, pressing it firmly to the gauze while she tore off a few pieces of medical tape to hold it in place.

Once he was bandaged, she sat back on her hands, legs dangling off the tailgate of the truck. “Well, I think you’ll live. They weren’t rabid, just dirt-mean. All of the predators out here seem to be- preternaturally ugly natures.” She patted his good knee and offered a half smile. Nick looked back at her gratefully. With his leg cleaned and bandaged, the pain was less, and his panic about rabies was abating. He reached for the notebook in his denim shirt pocket and wrote, _Thank you. _He paused, then followed that line with another, _My name is Nick Andros. I am a deaf-mute. I can read lips._ She read his note and her brow furrowed. For a moment, Nick was afraid that it would be his encounter with Tom all over, she wouldn’t be able to read. Instead, the woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a pencil, scratching on his piece of paper before handing it back. She’d altered it, and when he read it back, it said, _My name is Nick Andros, I am deaf and mute._ He tipped his head at the change. “It’s nice to meet you Nick. My name is Maggie English.”

Nick shook her hand and smiled. She’d been prepared for contingencies, without knowing he would be there. It reminded him a little of when he’d met Mother Abagail, and she’d already had supper on for them. As if she’d been waiting. 


	2. Twin Peaks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick Andros finds out his savior is an outsider.

Nick helped Maggie cut up the rest of the cow and load it onto the tarp, and then into the back of the truck. Though he was afraid he wasn’t that much help, he felt it was the least he could do. He wondered if anyone else had had the idea to hunt the remaining cows around Boulder, and thought of the buffalo he and Tom had seen in Kansas. 

There were plenty of them, the flu had carried off the horses and dogs, but not the cows. Pigs and chickens were also fine, he’d seen that for himself back in Nebraska. By the time they’d finished, they were streaked to the elbows with blood. He realized they looked rather like a couple of walking dead themselves, coated with gore, and the thought sent a chill down his spine. He looked back at the woman, Maggie, as the truck jounced and rumbled across the field, mowing down the late-season hay. Her jeans were muddy, also streaked with blood where she’d wiped her hands on her hips several times while butchering. She stopped to pick up Nick’s bike, which he loaded into the back next to the beef, tied in with a hank of rope. Maggie looked him over with a grimace when he got out of the car and shook her head. “You look like you’ve been ridden hard and put away wet. Do you want to stop at the mall here in town, and get some fresh clothes?” Nick nodded. Explaining the bite to poor Ralph when he got home was going to be hard enough.

“Okay. I’d offer you something of mine- but you’re about six inches too tall for it. Although if you wanted to- I could use a hand putting all this away-” she jerked her head toward the back of the pickup, and the tarpaulin wrapped steer. Nick nodded, then took out his notepad.  _ I’m going to need to get back to Boulder. No one there knows where I am. _

She read, and he thought he saw her face fall slightly as she folded his note up, lower lip poking out, in thought rather than a pout. “Okay. Sure- do you still want to stop? The mall is- on the way to the diagonal to Boulder.” She seemed to set her mind in that direction, her stubborn chin a little tense. Nick studied her for a moment. Above the hood of her dirty sweatshirt, her face was streaked with blood and mud, a smudge lining her high cheekbone that faced Nick. He felt sorry for a moment that he couldn’t stay, she seemed nice, and clever. Taking advantage of the roaming herds of newly wild cows was a good idea. She looked about his age, maybe a little older, it was hard to tell in the waning light of the afternoon. Harder still to tell through the layer of grime and gore that covered her. 

But maybe he would see her around town.  _ Maybe she would want to come over to dinner with me, and Ralph and Elise-  _ She didn’t feel like she belonged to the dark man, and he had none of the same misgivings that he did about Harold, or that strange Cross woman. She felt- good, to Nick, the way most of the people in Boulder did. Like home folks. He wrote and handed a note to her, tapping her shoulder lightly,  _ Where do you live? We could get some of my friends to help you with this too, if you want. _

“Oh- I live about eight miles outside Boulder, off toward Gunbarrel.” Maggie turned her head slightly toward him so that he could see her lips, and had a good view of the look of surprise that captured Nick’s face. “No, I don’t live in Boulder.”

He wrote quickly,  _ There’s plenty of room there, for everyone. You did a good job butchering that cow, and it was a good idea. We could use someone with those kind of ideas in Boulder. _ He smiled as he handed over the note, eyebrows lifting faintly. It was all true, and he thought maybe Fran and Sue would like her too, he felt certain that Stu would. He thought too, of Glen saying something about a brain drain, losing people he'd gotten used to seeing around town. Charlie Impening was gone, and good riddance. But what if this stranger- was a plant for the dark man, or could be persuaded to be one? 

“No.” Her lips set in a firm line that surprised Nick, and he cocked his head to the side and drew a question mark in the air. “No, no thank you Nick. I was in Boulder, for a while.” Maggie read his note again, resting at a stop sign and shook her head. Even though there was no traffic for miles, Nick noticed most people still obeyed the street signs.  _ Culture lag. _ “I was around there in August a little, to see what the lay of the land was. I saw the flyers about the town meeting, I went to the meeting anyway, to read the agenda. You’re that Nick Andros? From that committee?” Nick missed her tone, which was narrowly suspicious, and he nodded. “Well. No offense. But it seems like- it’s just starting everything up again, right where it left off with the flu, with the same things that got us there in the first place. Government, committees, all of it. Pretty soon there will be a military again I heard you all appointed yourself a marshal too. That Stu Redman.” Her face clouded a little and she paused, letting the empty storefronts pass them by for a moment before she continued. Nick, sensing she had more to say, waited patiently. It was all he could do. “I wasn’t very much for government and bureaucratic bullshit beforehand I guess. I don’t see much point in it now either. No, no thank you Nick. I come in to Boulder sometimes, to visit with people or see how things are going, but I don’t want to be under anybody’s thumb.”

Nick nodded, and a quiet fell between them that even he could sense a little uncomfortably. Her words fell along a similar line to his own leading up to the first town meeting. Those words,  _ Organization, Authority, Politics _ rolled ominously through his head again as he looked out the window, watching the silent monolith of the deserted shopping mall looming ahead of them. He could understand the objection to them easily. He had his own qualms about them, in the back of his mind. But he didn’t see another solution on the horizon. Decisions needed to be made, about the power, and about food supplies, and medicine. All the business of rebuilding a civilization. To say nothing of deciding what to do about the dark man. 

Maggie paused, rambling through the town, heading into the opposite lane a few times to avoid stalled cars in the street that hadn’t been cleared out of this town yet. “And then- there’s that other thing.” Nick looked at her askance, drew a question mark with his index finger, “ _ You _ know. The dark man. The old woman.” Understanding dawned on Nick’s face and he nodded. “I don’t want any part of it. I don’t- believe that.” Nick picked up his pen to write and she rested a hand on his arm and shook her head, “I mean, I do believe it. I know she’s real, I saw her myself, I met her when I got into town, like everyone I guess. And I believe  _ he’s _ real, I feel that’s true as well. I mean, I don’t believe  _ in  _ it. I don’t want to spend my last days on earth, if these are them, as- some fucking pawn in a chess match between God and Satan, or Mother Abagail and some stranger in Las Vegas, or anything else. Even if he means to destroy all the rest of us- well- the flu damn near did that. If her God wanted to set up a winning hand, why let everyone else die and just leave a handful of stragglers, wandering the mountains? No. I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it, and I don’t like it. I abstain. I refuse to take sides, although I guess I have already by being east of the Rockies. But I’m not going to play the game. My game is to survive, and then to thrive, as best as I can, for the rest of my days. However long that is.”

She pulled up to the curb in front of the Twin Peaks Mall.  _ Wasn’t there a show by that name at one point? _ Nick thought there had been. Some windows had been broken out, along with the doors, shattered glass littering the sidewalk. Some areas had been looted heavily in larger cities, but Nick supposed Longmont was small enough to have avoided the worst of the mid-epidemic crime wave. And after a few days, even the most stubborn looters were too sick to do much damage. He wrote as she parked the car and she waited, leaning over to read over his shoulder a little.  _ Don’t you think you would have a better chance surviving in a community, along with other people? _

Maggie laughed as she got out of the car, tipping her head back. “Nope.” She waited until Nck had gotten out on the other side to continue, “So far as I can tell, people in Boulder just want the lights back on so they can turn on their electric heat and pretend the plague never happened. That seems pretty goddamn stupid to me, to be quite frank.” Pushing open the door to the large Sears department store she stopped and turned back to Nick. “Can you get around on your own in there, do you think?” Nick nodded. His leg pained him, but he could hop along easily enough on it. I’ll meet you back at the front in twenty minutes? Do you have a watch?” Nick did, and he nodded again. He wrote,  _ Where are you going?  _ “I want to get some things for the house while I’m in town is all.” With that, she turned, picking her way through the tipped over display racks carefully, making her way out of sight into the store. Nick felt that a curtain had been drawn between them, and kicked a velvet box that had once contained an expensive watch out of his way.  _ It isn’t fair, _ he thought,  _ I didn’t ask for this. _

He wondered briefly if she lived alone, or if there was someone else with her. If he had to hazard it, he would guess alone. Part of him wanted to see where she had set up. She didn’t seem anxious, about the power, or about anything, and he wondered about that. If anything, she seemed a bit- miffed at the suggestion that she join the Free Zone. He pawed through the racks of clothes, and looked over his shoulder, needlessly making sure he was alone before leaning against a display case to strip off his damaged and stained corduroy pants, and pulled on a pair of dark blue jeans instead. He winced at the bruising and dried blood on his lower calf, and a moment’s thought, he added a few more button down shirts, a package of clean socks and underwear, and another pair of jeans to his wardrobe. Much like the bookstores, the clothing stores in Boulder were also fairly picked over, and getting more so with each new group of people that arrived and re-outfitted themselves. There were over a thousand of them now, and more coming all the time. He’d been surprised how quickly common necessities like socks and underwear had disappeared from the stores.

With his clothing in tow, he was ready to leave. A little awkwardly, he made his way back to the front of the store and sat down on a bench, resting his injured leg. While he waited for Maggie to return, he tapped his pen against the notepad, her words cycling through his head.  _ ‘it seems like- it’s just starting everything up again, right where it left off with the flu, with the same things that got us there in the first place.’ _ Maggie returned her arms laden with a large duffel bag, stuffed with something that poked out the canvas material at odd angles. Slung over her shoulder was a backpack medical kit, with another med kit hooked through the strap of the duffel. “Might as well stock up if the wolves are down out of the mountains. I can send you back with one of these too- in case you feel like wandering off on your own again.” She winked and pressed the pack into his hands, along with another duffel bag for his clothes.

Nick stood and put the clothing in the bag. He handed her the note he’d been working on while he waited for her to get what she needed from the store. It was short, just one line.  _ If you don’t mind, and if your offer still stands, I would like to see where you live.  _

“It stands. Sure, it stands.” 


	3. Renegade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie's background passing through the country.

When the flu had been at its zenith, Maggie had been in Seattle. Like Nick himself, she was from no one place. Her people were from Alabama, down south about an hour from the gulf, but she’d spent the last few years before the flu traveling around. She’d gleaned and dumpster dived, joined a band of freegans and planted gardens in a commune. Slept on couches from one end of the country to the other, and in between camped out in her truck, a rattling behemoth with a back seat large enough to sleep in, so long as the body trying to sleep wasn’t over five ten or so. She’d learned to barter to get by, giving away money when it crossed her path. A gifted car became a truck, a solar panel for the cab to charge a home-built battery kit that ran her essentials. A week spent camping and hunting on someone’s land might be traded for a week’s labor hoeing and cleaning around the house. A gift of apples became the gift of a pie later the same day. It was a free way to live, untethered by taxes or hindered by government programs. 

Camping in her truck she’d left the city center when the looting began, retreating up into the placid summer campgrounds of the Cascades. She might have stayed there until the snow fell, or after, if not for the dreams. Familiar landscape from her travels. Green corn, and the whisper of stalks. Nebraska, or Iowa. The old-home sounds of a guitar filtering through the sweet smelling stalks, drawing her in. The old woman. 

Maggie hadn’t needed to go elsewhere to survive, but she still felt the talismanic pull of Mother Abagail. And, she reasoned, that the midwest was as good as anywhere to survive. The winters were hard, but the land was fertile and good for growing. A place to take root, maybe. That idea had more appeal now that the society she’d struggled against fitting into had fallen apart. There were no more corporations to protest, no more rallies to attend, no more speeches, or posters to make. No more stands to make against the encroachment on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. True happiness that came from connecting with others, and couldn’t be bought in any store. Well, neither could anything else now either. 

Heading east, Maggie had collected her supplies along the way, steering clear of the picked over carcasses of major cities, instead looking for small out of the way places. Lower population density meant less looting. In the smaller towns, people had simply gone into their homes and died, leaving the stores stocked and ready for the next business day, never to come. 

She had arrived in Boulder when there were just a few hundred people around, most of them in already established groups of tens and twenty. Very few of the early arrivals were loners as she was. That was all right, she supposed. Everyone seemed eager to meet Mother Abagail, but mostly what Maggie wanted was to see the lay of the land. West was out of the question, the dark man in her dreams had left her waking up in a cold sweat, panting and clawing at unseen tethers. No, not west. But most of the people in Boulder didn’t seem to be too interested in doing much more than feeding themselves from day to day, and poking around in what was left of civilization. There had been some people stepping up of course, a young man from the library who was reading up on farming, a girl named Lucy, about her age, who she talked to about sourdough starters on one of her trips into town, and Raul, who spent most of his time at the power plant, but who had a decent working knowledge of combustion engines and automotive repair. He thought he could get most of the cars running, and out of the way with a little help. 

There was plenty to sustain most people for the winter at least. But this new world wasn't just going to last through this winter, or next summer, she was certain of that. There was a battle coming, for the world, or for their souls, she supposed it didn't matter. Either way, Maggie considered herself to be a conscientious objector. Not a dark knight, nor a paladin, just another squire in the field. She remembered a tee shirt she'd seen in the back of a weekly free paper, depicting Stonehenge, glowing against a sunburst background. The caption read, "Give me that old time religion." Maggie liked that. No God-man in the clouds, wagging a finger. Just the sun, sky, and rocks. The tangible forces in the world. Things that could be seen, smelt, heard, touched, tasted, those were the things she believed in. The dark man, she felt certain, was outside that natural order. Some space-cowboy from another plane of existence maybe, but he didn’t belong in this world, not really. 

For that matter, the old woman was also outside the natural order of things, with her mind on God, and her great age. And Maggie wasn't quite sure what to make of that. It unsettled her, even though she loved the old woman's warmth and comforting presence as primitive man must have loved the great fire in the sky. But Maggie was not a primitive man, she was a modern human. She could make her own fire.

She hadn't stayed in Boulder long, a week was enough time for her to see that folks were just waiting for things to get back to normal. It didn't seem to occur to them that "normal" as they knew it didn't exist anymore. And that maybe “normal” as they had known it, wasn’t such a good idea in the first place. She used the time to plan, and to think about where she'd best look to settle. Not too far from Boulder, she really didn’t want to be too far from other, people. But not in town, where there wasn't any room to spread out, nor many natural resources to sustain a person in the long term. She had made with a list, starting with necessities, and working her way out to recreation. First, was food, water, and shelter. If she had those settled, the rest would take care of themselves in time. Knowing that west, deeper into the mountains was out of the question, she’d headed farther east, first thinking of Fort Collins, and the germplasm repository there, and then she’d found the small farm east of the Zone. Originally it had been meant to be a guest ranch, providing the ‘real ranch experience’ to city slickers, with horseback rides and generous woodpiles and a stocked lake. It had what she wanted though, what she’d had in mind. The main house was enormous, with extra rooms for guests, and impossible to heat in the winter without electricity. No, what she wanted was one of the bunkhouses, which were much smaller, no more than two bedrooms, and with porches front and back. She was just one person, after all, what would she do with two floors and six bedrooms?

Most of her supplies had come from foraging local camping shops, home improvement stores, and bulk warehouse stores. Some things that wouldn’t spoil quickly, honey, flour, vacuum sealed yeasts, sugars, flours, and coffees. She wasn’t sure where coffee was going to come from once that was gone, and had a note to research it at the Loveland public library. With her list in mind, Maggie had taken special care to search out items that would be especially useful without power and running water, striving to keep in mind that necessities must come before convenience. Even though it was summer, and this August was an exceptionally warm one, a very long cold winter was just around the corner. She didn’t know if anyone else was stockpiling wood, but the natural gas and oil was bound to run low sometime, and she didn’t consider it to be a dependable resource in this new age.

Over the course of the last month, she thought she’d done all right for herself. There were plenty of cattle milling around, and she’d found a cow with a calf, and coaxed a bull to her farm with offers of fresh hay. A week later she had added another cow, a pretty tan Jersey. A curiosity of this particular region of Colorado, was the alpaca population. She’d counted at least five defunct farms on her way into town,, and well over hundred animals milling about. A hundred would be too many to care for, but she had planned to look for sheep, for yarn, and maybe meat, and supposed that an alpaca would do just as well. Apparently they thrived here in the foothills of the mountains, and she managed to round up a handful of animals. 

The days felt longer than the hours of sunlight allotted to this corner of the world, and each time Maggie lay her head down on the pillow at night, sleep came quickly. She felt at peace, free, foraging for herself, taking out the big Silverado to bring back tools and odds and ends, sheet metal she’d found at a metal working shop, including full tanks of oxy-acetylene, torches and masks. Once upon a time her dad had worked as a machinist, and had taught her the very basics of joining metal. She supposed it would come in handy around the farm, and had an idea to make a metal food storage cabinet to put on the back deck come winter, to keep her food stored cold outdoors. Yes, the days were busy, and the work was often hard, taxing her body more than it had ever been before, but satisfying, and peaceful in their way. There was no one telling her what to do, or where to go, just the list in her head, and her own drive. Ultimate freedom to come and go as she pleased. 

Maybe she wasn’t doing “God’s” work, but it was good work, and she liked it. She liked having the freedom to do as she saw fit, without anyone directing her in one particular direction or another. She’d seen the hazards of totalitarian government practices and corruption- government sanctioned secret police and closed door meetings first hand, long before Captain Trips. Haiti had been one such place, where the government enacted laws that were never published, low level arrests for petty crimes, while the higher up echelons of government were untouchable. She didn’t particularly care for what she’d seen in the public meetings- demarcation of “public” meetings meant that somewhere there were “private” meetings going on, and that made her nervous. The whole panel of “ad hoc” committee members being swept into office by- what she assumed- was a careful plant also rubbed her the wrong way. There hadn’t even really been an election, just blind acceptance that the ones who stepped up were hand picked by the old woman, and therefore beyond reproach. She thought the whole thing stank like a shallow bay at low tide, fetid and dirty.

And so, she’d been seeing to herself, first killing and then beginning the butchering process on a steer with a broken leg she’d seen near the Longmont diagonal, on her way back from Lafayette, to the Home Depot to pick up some battery packs for her hand tools. The wolves hadn’t been a problem. Before traveling for the Corps, she’d learned to shoot, and the shooting range wasn’t too far, about five miles south, on Colorado route 1, and she had spent a number of afternoons there, getting into practice by lamplight. She’d nailed that first wolf right between the eyes. _I’d have gotten those other two too, if the damn fool hadn’t run out into the field. _

Maggie looked over at the silent, dark haired young man. He was maybe a few years even younger than she was, although his narrow face showed more than his fair share of worry on it. Nice enough looking, she guess. And Lord bless us and keep us- he was one of the committee members, a politician really. One of the very first ones in the new world, and she didn’t much care to be anybody’s constituent. If she’d wanted that, she could have stayed in Boulder and twiddled her thumbs with the rest of them, waiting for the lights to come back on.

It might be nice to have someone to talk with, she guessed, and he must have done some kind of work with his hands before the- well, before the flu, because he was decently handy, climbing around the truck, and loading crudely butchered beef. That was something. If he would help her put it away, even hobbled as he was, the work would go faster with two sets of hands, and then she’d drive him home, and maybe he’d leave her be. _That would be just fine. Of course it figures, the first person I end up bringing home, is one of the ones who set up their little half-assed Theocracy in Boulder in the first place. Christ on a cracker. _


	4. Maggie's Farm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people aren't content to wait for the power to come back on to get to work.

Butchering took longer than Nick had expected, by the time they approached the dirt roads south of Loveland, the sun was low in the sky, and dusk was rapidly approaching. He looked at Maggie, wanted to ask how long it would take- what on earth she was going to do with all this meat, way out here, but his pen stayed loosely held in his fist. She hadn’t talked much on the way out to her place, and he wasn’t sure if she would welcome the interruption. If she’d elected to live way out here on her own, maybe she didn’t want company, maybe she didn’t need it, the way he did, after so much time alone. She might, later on, but maybe not. He dozed in and out, intermittently on the drive, trying to ignore the throbbing in his leg. As they pulled up the drive, he blinked, sure he must be dreaming still. At the foot of the long driveway, to the right of it someone- Maggie, of course, had taken down whatever sign was there, and replaced it with a hand carved and painted sign reading simply, “Maggie’s Farm.” Even in the waning light, Nick could read it clearly, because the sign was illuminated. On either side, a five foot tall lantern glowed with cool friendly unwavering light.

Nick turned to her, his mouth open, and started to write quickly,  _ Do you have electricity? How? Where did those lights come from?  _ When he passed her the note, Maggie punched the overhead light in the cab of the truck to read Nick’s hasty scrawl. “Solar. There’s all kinds of solar lights- those ones are LED’s. Neat, huh?” In spite of her irritation at having to bring home a Goddamned politician. to her safe little homestead, smug pleasure showed on her face as she pulled up to the little house. To either side of the steps leading up the porch, more solar lights glowed welcomingly. Rather than stop out front, she pulled the truck around the house on a dirt track she’d worn herself making many trips this way over the past month. She backed nearly up to the rear porch- more lights, these illuminating a curious hand-built structure to one side of the porch, and a nicely stocked wood pile abutting the cabin.

“If you’ll give me a hand, I can fix some dinner, and then I’ll give you a ride home. If you think you have that much time that is- It’s way past my dinnertime.” She paused and Nick had to lean closer to see her mouth in the dusky light. He nodded and opened the bed of the truck, climbed up into it and started handing out pieces of beef. He had more questions he wanted to ask, but for the time being, his hands were occupied. He watched with great interest as Maggie headed into the house, and turned on some other bright, blueish lights, and complemented those with the slightly flickering yellow glow of hurricane and gas lamps. Before long, the little house was brightly lit, and she deposited her stash of meat into an icebox right by the door. Between the two of them, work went quickly, and Nick climbed down from the bed of the truck, and shouldered his pack again. His eyes traced the line from the chest freezer to a pair of generators around the side of the building and he shook his head slightly. They hadn’t been here originally, she must have tracked them down and installed them herself. 

Maggie paused inside, pressed her hands against her back and stretched, her eyes closed. Everything was going to hurt tomorrow, that was for sure. “Well. I’ll work on dinner and- if you want to clean up, there’s a shower to the back there. Let me show you.” Nick watched, as she stepped inside the living room, and filled a bucket from a tap next to the wood stove, his brow knit in consternation. The stove was massive, a six burner cook top complete with oven and some kind of tank on the side with a tap that she drew water from. When she brought the bucket back, he saw it was steaming. “It’s not the most efficient system, but I sure hate a cold shower- I don’t know about you.” Nick shrugged. He’d gotten used to cold showers in Boulder. His- he and Ralph’s house- up in the hills had water from a well, but it was icy cold, even in the heat of summer. No electricity to run the water heater. 

The end of the porch was walled off and when she opened the door to the curious structure off the deck, Nick saw it was a shower room, with a fiberglass insert, and a small bench next to it, complete with storage boxes underneath, and a few more hooks with clean towels hanging up. He grinned back at her, dark eyes alight with curiosity and she waved him off with a brusque hand.

“I’m just going to go around and pour this in the tank. It should be plenty warm, it’s been in the sun all day, but this will help too. Just ah- see that nozzle? Flip the metal latch on it and it will stay on until you’re done. Help yourself to a towel.”

Nick looked up, and saw a regular garden hose, complete with watering attachment suspended from the ceiling with c-clamps. He wanted to laugh, but even more, he wanted to see if this jury-rigged contraption worked. Maggie left him in privacy and he heard her splashing water into an unseen tank just behind the shower cabinet. He stripped and hung his clothes up on a hook behind the door, examining the structure a little as he did so. In the early summer evening it was downright balmy, and he supposed, that even in the winter, it would beat the hell out of melting snow, or trying to dash out to the creek to wash up. They had water in parts of Boulder, but this far out, without electrical pumps, he guessed the water was off too. When he depressed the lever on the nozzle, deliciously warm water poured out and he faced up to it for a moment before beginning a quick wash, scrubbing off blood- his own and the cow’s. He toweled off and dressed in fresh clothing, feeling like a new man. He examined his leg in the waning light as much as possible and grimaced. His whole body was turning into a roadmap of scars. 

The temperature inside the cabin was positively tropical, thanks to the boiling pot of water on the stove sending clouds of steam into the air, even with the front and back doors open for ventilation. Maggie was at the stove, poking something down into the pot and Nick approached her shyly. He knocked at the frame of the open door and she looked up. He held up a thumb and forefinger circle.

“Pretty good, huh?” She looked pleased, and Nick smiled and nodded emphatically.  _ She’s a lot nicer looking when she was smiling _ , he thought, seeing the stiff line of her jaw relax, her grey eyes sparkling. “Do you mind watching these a moment while I wash up too?” He shook his head and took the spoon from her, peeking into the pot, grinning when he saw a few yellow potatoes bobbing up and down merrily. Maggie was a blur, as she disappeared into one bedroom and then reappeared with her own set of clothes bundled up to her chest, heading onto the back porch shower as Nick had done. With her out of the cabin, Nick helped himself to a look around. In a few strategic locations- near the doors, above the sink, in the hallway, hooks or small shelves had been installed, recently it looked like, from the pencil marks on the knotty pine walls, and most of them supported lit lanterns. The kitchen was mostly- just a kitchen, although it looked like the electric stove had been recently removed, judging from the cleaner spot on the linoleum floor, and that floorspace was now occupied by a large wood box.

He tipped his head to the side to look at the cookstove, marveling a little. It was a beautiful thing, really, with enameled doors, vents along the sides to heat up the space surrounding it, and that ingenious water tank, filled with steaming water. That explained the hot shower, and how she was able to set the water to boiling so quickly. He wondered where she’d gotten it, or if it had been here. Up near the ceiling, it looked like the chimney pipe had been freshly welded. There was a fridge still in place, the cords running outside to the generators. He opened the refrigerator next to it, and the same, it wasn’t frosty inside, but it was plenty cold. In the freezer up above, a few ice trays sat filled, ready to freshen up a drink. He saw several glass jars of milk, and one of- butter? He took out his notepad to jot some things down, he was so full of questions by now, he was afraid of forgetting something once she came back out.

_ Generators? Where did the cookstove come from? How did you get it here?  _ He marveled and shook his head, sitting at one of the barstools in the kitchen.  _ Who  _ are  _ you? _

When Maggie came back in, she startled the tar out of him by putting a hand on his shoulder, seeing him deep in thought. Nick flailed, overbalanced, toppled backward off the stool, landing on hard on his backside. “Well okay, if you’re going to break my furniture, you can just go home right now-” He waved a hand apologetically and stood, righting the stool, patting it to show it was all right. “I know it’s all right, I was fucking with you.” She gave him a slanted smile, and Nick looked back at her. Freshly cleaned up, her cheeks pink from the warm shower, light freckles showing on her nose and tanned cheeks, she was much lovelier than she had been scowling and musing and covered in offal. And wrapped in a towel, definitely appealing. “I’m just going to- toss my clothes in the hamper.” She pointed toward the back bedroom, and Nick nodded, watching her walk off, towel folded neatly around her slight frame. His eyes turned to follow her, and he saw a line of brightly colored feathers tattooed up the back of her thigh.  _ Jesus. _ He shook his head at himself and ran his fingers through his still-damp hair, not much shorter than hers now really.

She seemed happier when she returned, in a baggy t-shirt and equally baggy sweat pants, and bare feet. “Okay, Nick. Have a seat-” She blinked as he pressed his question list into her hands earnestly, holding her hand in his for a moment until she took it. He nodded, then sat on the sofa to her right, leaned forward with his chin on his hands in a listening posture and motioned to her. She rolled her eyes and read his note.

“Oh Christ. Well, okay.I have three solar generators to the side of the house, which are hooked up to- a whole roof-ful of solar panels. I figure- they can run about 5,000 watts of power each on a continual basis. I’m not sure of that though, so I just have the freezer and fridge hooked up to them, and my little LED lights.” She paused, and pointed to four matching hanging lights, strung together like giant christmas bulbs. “If it gets too cloudy in the winter, I’m going to build a winter cold storage box to put on the deck, with a lock on it so raccoons and coyotes won’t get in it. And- there’s another few battery packs and solar panels out on the workshop too- around back, so I can run a few power tools, and use it to charge up the battery packs when I’m not running anything else. The Colemans here- those are mostly LED, with rechargeable packs. I can run those okay, I guess. That all came from Home Depot and Lowe’s. There for anybody to pick up for free, now.”

As she spoke, her face illuminated, doing a fair impression of the lanterns, until she was grinning broadly. It was obvious to Nick that she was pleased with her ingenuity, devising a way to have food storage and necessary tools in a way that was independent of any other power, save that Nature provided. Nick whapped his forehead with his palm.  _ Solar power, of course. You couldn't run a whole house with it, not during the winters- but a few necessary appliances? Sure. Obviously that worked just fine. _

“So that’s the power. Not a lot, I guess I could run a little tv, and it keeps my CB up and running too.” Nick sat up sharply, eyebrows raise. He drew a question mark in the air, nodding to her urgently. “Yes, I have a CB. If something happened- I’d need to be able to get in touch with someone, right?” Nick took out his pad and started to write hurriedly. “Hey now, one question sheet at a time, Jack.” Maggie pointed a finger at him, and looked back at the first sheet. “Anyway, that’s the power. The cookstove was a little harder.” She’d known what she was looking for, and that one of the homes up in the mountains would be likely to have it. Some of the places she’d lived in the last five years had been off-grid, and people kept giant cookstoves running day and night. Usually with something slow cooking on top. Still, it had been grim work, going from house to house to find the right one. In the high country people had figured they would be safe from the plague affecting the rest of the world, and she’d half expected to find some isolated survivalists who weren’t immune, but hadn’t come in contact with anyone to catch the flu. All she had found though were bodies, barricaded into their cabins. If not for the smell, she’d have moved in but most of those places were too far out of the way, even for her. She didn’t want to be completely isolated. And most of the cabins she’d found were up high in the mountains, where if she got into trouble, there’d be no reaching anyone until spring once the snow flew. “Once I found it in a cabin, I had to find a pallet jack to lift it.”

She stood and moved to the kitchen work top and took out a cut of beef, slicing one end of it into steaks. “Can you still read me from here?” Nick frowned, and stood up, sat on the stool across from her. From across the room he had trouble making her words out. He rested his chin on his hand, and rested his second question sheet on the surface in front of her. This close, and freshly showered, she smelled wonderful, he decided. Clean, and a little like woodsmoke, and lavender. He wanted to close his eyes and savor, but then he would miss her answers. 

“Uhm- what else-” Her lower lip moved, as she thought over this next questions, reading them from the paper. Nick slid the second paper across the smooth stone countertop to her like a bookie accepting a bet. She turned it over, and it read,  _ Does your CB work? If it does, can I use it to call back to Boulder, and let my people know where I am? _ A suppressed grin twisted her mouth slightly and she looked back at him coolly, “I don’t know,  _ can _ you?” He started in protest, not sure at first if she was making fun of his handicap, or his grammar. She tipped her head to the side, eyebrows raised, “Unless you and the guy on the other end know morse code, and you’ve got a whistle, I don’t see the point- but I’d be happy to call in, if that’s what you want. You’ll be home soon anyway, is it that big of a deal?”

_ We’ve had some other people go missing recently. I don’t want to worry anyone. _ Nick wrote, and handed to her. With Mother Abagail gone, and Charles Impening gone as well recently, some folks were getting a little dodgy about who was still around. 

“Oh sure, I understand.” Nick wondered if maybe she would invite him to stay, if he called in and let everyone know he was all right. Part of him wanted to. Part of him wanted to very badly. Fresh and clean like this, she seemed all right. But first he needed to get in touch. He hadn’t seen or anyone since Ralph at breakfast, before the other man went out to work at the power plant. When she opened her mouth to speak again he circled the letters "CB" and looked at her urgently. Maggie rolled her eyes and gave him an absentminded wave. "Yes yes. I'm getting to it." She picked up the sliced steaks and a, pan and carried them to the cookstove.

The CB was on a small table next to the two seater sofa, the volume turned off. Maggie sat closest to it and flicked the switch and picked up the microphone with a squeak of static. Nick sat next to her, looking over her shoulder. He couldn’t hear it, of course, but he could see the lights come on when it was in use. Again he thought of how- sweet and earthy she smelled, and felt the temperature in the room rise a few degrees. She pressed talk, and cleared her throat while Nick began to write. "Come in Boulder, channel 14 Boulder Free Zone-"

Ralph's Oklahoma drawl came in clearly thanks to his booster, and Nick smiled, relieved when Maggie repeated his words for him. "Boulder free zone, Ralph Brentner here, I copy you. Who’m I talkin' to here? Over."

Maggie cleared her throat and looked at Nick, accepting his note before she continued. "This is Maggie English, I'm over in Gunbarrel. I'm here with somebody you know, Nick Andros. I ran into him just off the diagonal." She looked at Nick’s note and started to read it for Ralph. "I've got a note here from him. He says-'Hi Ralph, I headed to Longmont to look for some new reading materials. I saw a wolf pack in the field on the way back and one bit me. Maggie fixed me up pretty well. She has quite a place out here. We butchered a cow and she offered to fix dinner. She said she can drive me back to Boulder afterward. How are things there?' Over."

While Ralph talked, Maggie repeated his words for Nick. "Well hell Nicky, it's sure good to hear from you, well- you know, Stu and Fran both came by, and we was gettin’ worried about you. You said you got bit? It weren’t rabid, was it? Over.”

Maggie answered before Nick had a chance to write, “No, not rabid. I was butchering a cow and they must have smelled it. They were just hungry, Nick ran out into the field to wave them away from me, and they fell for it, in a big way. He seems okay though. Over.”

“Well hell, I guess I’m sure glad you were there then. Nick, Glen came by too, wanting to talk to you-” here Ralph paused, unsure about the stranger in the audience between he and Nick, “‘bout some committee business. You’ll want to stop by and see him I guess, when you get in. You think you’ll be in tonight? Over.”

Nick wrote, and passed it along to Maggie, who read for him, “He says, ‘Yes, I’ll be home late tonight. If he’s up I’ll stop in at his place. I want to talk to him too.’ That’s all. If you all don’t mind, I’d like to get something to eat. Some of us working stiffs still have things to do after supper other than gab with one another.” She cleared her throat noisily before adding, “Over.”

Ralph laughed heartily, and Maggie turned to Nick, explaining, “He’s laughing.” Nick smiled and nodded, feeling a weight roll from his shoulders. His brain was full of things to talk about with the rest of the committee, but that could wait until he got back. Ralph would tell the others he was fine, and they wouldn’t worry. “All right. See you soon Nicky, good talkin’ with you Maggie, look forward to seeing you in the Zone. You can get here all right? Over.”

“I don’t have any problem finding Boulder, thanks. Over.” Her answer was crisp and a little chilly, and Nick saw her lift her chin slightly.

“Awright, we’ll be seeing you. Over and out.” 


	5. Dancing in the dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Discussions over dinner.

Over dinner, Nick learned that Maggie had been in Nicaragua, and Haiti, in the Peace Corps, not that different than Rudy, really. He wrote with one hand, and ate with the other, not willing to give up completely on either one. The food was superb, fresh meat and hearty root vegetables sauteed with homemade butter. Maggie admitted that the butter was something of an experiment, she had read about the process but not attempted it before yesterday. Nick shook his head and rubbed his stomach happily. The last time he’d had real butter had been in Shoyo, before the power went out and the rich taste of it flooded his mouth like the golden light of an early morning. While the steaks and potatoes were cooking, Maggie had put together some fluffy biscuits, with even more of the butter, and they melted apart in heavenly flakes. A few times, Nick had to close his eyes and give up writing questions- he had many questions about her- in order to focus completely on the meal in front of him.

_ I think the last time I had a meal like this was at Mother Abagail’s in Nebraska. Thank you, Maggie.  _ He leaned back in his chair, feeling like a happy bed-tick, about to burst. He picked up a heavy drinking glass and drained the last of the fresh milk from it anyway, licking the white moustache that it left on his upper lip. Maggie laughed at that, and he offered a slanted smile. She wasn’t exceptionally beautiful, especially not when she was giving him a sarcastic answer to an honest question, he thought, but when she smiled- that was something else entirely.

“I said I’d make you dinner. I was planning on eating anyway.” She nudged her plate away, and daubed at a spot of butter with her finger, licking it clean. Nick smiled, and the gesture almost made him want to blush. Instead, he turned his attention to his notepad.  _ What was it you did, in Nicaragua and Haiti? _ He passed the note to her and looked up expectantly.

Maggie read and half smiled. That had been a good time in her life, when she felt useful and deeply connected to the people around her. Now, in this strange new world, she realized that her friends in those countries were probably faring better than here in what had been America. If they were still alive. Most of them already lived without electricity, or plumbing, and had learned to adapt to the world around them, rather than forcing the world to adapt to them. “I helped install wells, and water pumps in rural areas. Fucking glad I did, aren’t I?” She winked at Nick and he ducked his head slightly, resisting the urge to blush. He wrote instead,  _ Did you do that here too? _

“Of course I did. As soon as I found this place, I installed a rope pump at the old well here on the property. I was lucky that there was already a well built, installing a cement cap would have been the hardest part. All I had to do here was strip out the electronics, and retrofit the old school materials. I set it up to run from that well, through a bunch of flexible insulated tubes to refill my rain barrels when I need to.” She leaned her chin on her hand, and her grey eyes looked almost wisftul, “What I’d really like to do, is build a high water tank, with a cistern. I know how, but I’d need to find a tank big enough. But then, I bet I could pump the water right up to it with one of my little solar pumps when it got low, and even connect it to the plumbing in the house. It might be a little better than a well when the ground’s froze solid. That’s a little ways off though, and I’d be better off working on that project when winter wasn’t staring down at me a few pages down the calendar, you know?” Nick nodded. It was the same concern he had when he was still on the road, that winter was just around the corner, and it promised to be a hard one. Harder still, if Brad couldn’t get the power back on. Then people would start leaving this high country.   


“What about you, Mr. Chairman-of-the-Board? What did you do before?” Most people didn’t ask much about the past, or about before, unless someone offered that they had been a doctor, or a lawyer, or something else useful. Nick wasn’t sure how they’d take it, to find out one of the founding committee members had been- well, what had he been? A wanderer, he supposed, technically homeless and working odd jobs to get by.

His face reddened as he looked down at the notepad and drummed his pen against it, not sure how to answer her question, or even if he wanted to. Finally, he wrote,  _ I was an orphan. The orphanage went bust when I was 16 and I traveled around to avoid getting picked up. Mostly I worked on farms and sometimes in different towns, doing chores for people. _

Maggie read and bowed her head. She pushed her dark hair out of her face and shook her head, “And now you’re holding semi-elected political office-” She laughed somewhat bitterly, and Nick cocked his head at the strange look on her face, “Well- shit. Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer, you’re not far from that I guess.” She pointed a warning finger at him when he started to grin, “I still don’t want any part of all that. But if you’ve worked on farms before- that’s something anyway. You might even survive the winter, knowing a little something like that.”

Nick felt himself breathe a sigh of relief, feeling as if he’d been approved of somehow. Going into the town meeting, he’d felt the same kind of relief when the Ad Hoc committee had been voted in permanently, in toto.  _ I guess I might. If any of us do. _ A long moment passed between them when she read his note and she capped it with a sigh like water slowly draining from a leaky tire. She stood up and pushed away from the table, collecting dishes from their places on the kitchen worktop. Nick stood as well and she froze, her eyes locking with his momentarily. As he touched her arm gently, she set the dishes down hard and looked up at him sharply, her face pinched. “That’s a hell of a thought, why would you say a thing like that- for fuck’s sake?” She frowned bitterly and waved a hand when Nick reached for his pad, “No, I know you didn’t say it- you wrote it. But still. That’s a helluva thing for  _ you _ to be saying. Don’t let your constituents hear you talking like that. Writing like that. Whatever.” Once more, she scooped up the dishes, and brushed the scraps into a plastic pail by the sink, turning away from Nick, leaving him to watch the silent language of her body.

He was used to reading people’s bodies though, and felt her tone rather than heard it. It was all over her face, there had been that moment of- _What? _He thought, _Connection?_ He’d felt something, that was for sure, an instant of heat when their eyes locked that was still making him tingle, and then she’d pulled away from him forcibly, redirecting her attention and turning so he couldn’t see her words. She dumped some of the warm potato water into the bucket as well and filled a basin in the sink with warm water from the stove, adding flakes of soap and put the dishes in to soak. He wanted to say something to her, anything to break the tension between them, and felt that old frustration- _If I could only _talk- rise up inside of him again. He moved to stand behind her and rested a hand on her shoulder gently. She turned around quickly, nearly clobbering him with a spatula and he took a step back, his face apologetic. “I still have things I need to do here- animals to feed, and dishes to do- and you’ve got to get home, Mr. President.”

Nick rolled his eyes at that last and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, pointing to his chest, then the stack of dishes in the sink. “Oh well- if you insist, go right ahead-” Maggie seemed to relax some and stepped out of the way, clapping him on the shoulder, and shoved a scrub brush into his hand. “Go easy on the cast iron though, it doesn’t need soap, just some good hot water from the stove.”  
  
Nick nodded and saluted her with the scrub brush and she rewarded him with another 10,000 watt smile. He grinned and turned his head, watching her step into heavy black boots with the laces loose and the tongues flopping forward like panting dogs. She headed out into the back yard, around the truck, and Nick saw several strings of bright blueish lights, giving up selections of the farmyard, leading out to the barn. It was another good idea, one he supposed had been in practice in many rural areas, especially where snow was common in the winter. As she walked, her narrow frame bopped along, barely visible, to a beat that was unheard by Nick, or anyone else and he thought to himself,  _ that’s what music looks like. A woman with dancing in the dark, lit by fairy light. _


	6. Brain Drain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What to do about the Zone's non-residents?

Stu looked at Nick incredulously across the kitchen table. Fran sat to his left, Glen to his right, and each of their faces bore a similar expression. He looked down at the note Nick had laid in front of them his description of Maggie’s cabin, complete with freezer, and if not electric light, at least sustainable light through the winter. He’d done his best to not embellish or make up details he wasn’t certain about. The rope pump was a novel idea, and one they could use here in Boulder, even if the power went out again over the winter, which it was certain to. “And she’s living down there on her own?” Stu shook his head and reread Nick’s note, looking at some of the diagrams, of the stove and shower set up he’d reproduced as well as possible from memory. Nick nodded and looked at Glen, seeing the consideration on the older man’s face. He took the notepad back and wrote again.

_ My concern I guess, is how much she knows. She was in the Zone, but left it. Not west, but she also doesn’t seem to want to stay here either. She worked for the Peace Corps before the flu, building wells and irrigation systems in rural areas. I don’t doubt that she can take care of herself, and there are a lot of people here who need just that kind of knowledge. If not now, then next spring. She seems to-  _ He paused, trying to capture just what her attitude toward the committee had been. Not quite anger, but the discussion of the committee and governance had brought out all her sharp edges.  _ -find the idea of the committee offensive on its own. _ He finished, and knew that still wasn’t quite right. Glen’s grey brows knitted together as he read that last, and Nick guessed that was the point that most concerned the old sociologist.

“That’s the question, isn’t it? We don’t want to suffer a- a brain drain, but- my hunch is still that our Adversary is going to collect most of the techies. The people who like for things to run on time- and the people who can make things run on time. I have a feeling the people on our side who can do those things are a little thin on the ground, we need to keep all we can. Maybe whether they object to our system or not-”

“Oh now we’re back to locking people up because they don’t like how we’re running things? This is exactly what came up last time, Nick, when you named Stu town marshal.” Frannie interrupted and shook her head firmly, “Are you saying you want to keep her here against her will, Nick?”

Stu shuddered faintly, although no one but Fran saw it. He’d had his share of being locked up in the too recent past. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

It was the old question of Authority. Shoyo came back to him and Nick wrote, _I don’t either. And I don’t think she would cooperate even if we did get her here. I think we ought to see if we can go to her, and maybe she would be willing to teach some of us what she knows about well building and pumping water._ _If she was in the Peace Corps_ _she should know something about getting people organized, and we need that. _He paused thoughtfully before writing. _I think she would be more likely to cooperate on her home turf._

“Giving her the home field advantage, as it were, eh, Nicky?” Glen raised his bushy eyebrows and smiled soberly. “There’s something to that, I suppose. Do you think it’s something for the next committee meeting on the second?”

Somewhat to Glen’s surprise, Nick shook his head firmly.  _ I think it ought to be an informal visit. I’d like it if maybe just a few of us went down there to meet her. Seven of us might be a little much. If we have to narrow it down, I would like you three to come. _

“Let me guess, you think she might warm up to another girl, is that right?” Fran looked back at Nick and pursed her lips slightly. Nick shrugged, then nodded. “I don’t like the idea of holding anyone captive, if you think she’d be willing to help, I guess I’m in. Frannie votes aye.”

“You know, Larry’s pretty personable, and Ralph is handy, he’d probably take a shine to some of those inventions you mentioned-” To Glen’s surprise, Nick cut him off with a shake of his head, drawing his hand diagonally through the air before he started writing.

_ I want Ralph to be here, so we can call him on the CB if we need to. If she’s going to insist on staying out there, it might be worthwhile to set up a second monitored channel. Ralph is the one to do that. _ Nick thought of Larry,with his blonde hair and comfortable good looks and humor and frowned slightly. Larry had Lucy and Leo, but for some reason the thought of introducing Maggie to him made Nick feel uneasy. Not because Maggie might dislike him, but because of the opposite. _ No Larry. _

Glen gave him an appraising look.“All right, all right, lad, and when do you propose we make this visit?” Glen held his hands up and shook his head, placating him.

_Tomorrow or the next day at the latest, before the next committee meeting._ _If it goes well, maybe she could present at the meeting on the second._ Nick set the pencil down, indicating he was finished. He looked at the other three expectantly, watching their faces until they nodded. 

“All right Nick, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to go out there and have a look. I’m with Fran, I don’t like the idea of locking people up either, and to be honest with you, I’m pretty curious about this set up too. Like to see it for myself.” Stu nodded back at Nick and gave him a half smile. “You let us know, Nicky, me and Fran would be glad to see the doins over there. Tomorrow’s fine with me, if it’s all right with you, Glen.”

Nick smiled and nodded happily when Glen consented, part of him looking forward to the trip out. As he lay in bed that night, he meant to work on a mental list of questions to ask Maggie, along with the others tomorrow, and instead found himself remembering her dancing under the blueish lights in her yard. Heat crept into his face as the image in his head twisted, envisioning her swaying back and forth under the warm slick spray of her shower instead. He wondered if that feather tattoo went all the way up the back of her leg, or what else might have been hidden under that towel. 


	7. Who can you use?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wyrd is the way is the world.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Maggie swore emphatically when the hen turned and jabbed its beak at her hand as she fumbled for an egg underneath it. “If you do that again, I’m eating you! I don’t care if you’re still laying!” She set the basket of eggs down and held the chicken’s neck with one hand, and pulled the egg out of the nest with the other, depositing it in the basket. For good measure, she stuck her tongue out at the chicken before ducking her way out of the henhouse. She dusted straw from her hair and carried the eggs back into the small cabin.

So far this morning, she’d milked the cows, and taken out slop and some of the softer vegetables and dried ears of corn to the two pigs, Thing one and Thing two, and Thing two’s piglets, Pork Chop, Bacon, Ham, and Sausage and spread out alfalfa hay and more corn for the alpacas.  _ I’m going to have to put up more hay, _ she thought, as she checked the stores in the loft of the barn.  _ I guess there’s plenty around to be had, if I just drive around to some of the other local farms.  _ The chickens had been fed, eggs collected, and she checked the water levels in her rain barrels and decided there was enough to water in the garden before running the pump. 

She’d set up a number of barrels to capture rain water and locate it where it would be the most useful. Near the shower, on the sunny side of the yard, out near the garden and barns, and close by the kitchen door where she could run it in with a hose. Not quite indoor plumbing, but it would do for the time being. She had a mind to take advantage of the afternoon sunshine and use it to proof a couple of loaves of bread. Breakfast was two eggs, and a leftover biscuit from dinner the night before, and she found herself thinking about Nick. It had been odd to have another person here, although at least he was quiet. He couldn’t help but be quiet, true, but he was also quiet in a thoughtful sort of way.

Maggie mused over having someone else here, in her place. He was the first one since she’d claimed it for herself. She had worked hard to clean it out, removing stuffed deer heads and horrible bunk beds from the spare room. She’d cut those up for firewood, and stacked it behind the house. She’d replaced the guest furniture with a large table for sketching out designs, and a small pedal operated singer sewing machine. An antique spinning wheel, a relic that reminded her of the tale of Rumplestiltzkin had come from the alpaca farm, along with a few of the animals who had been left to shift for themselves. She had thought about simply moving in there, but the house was enormous, and would have been almost impossible to heat adequately during the winter. The tiny bunkhouse was better, and still close enough to the barn and gardens to be manageable. Beside which, the animals could move, the house could not.

Nibbling a second biscuit, she put the kettle on and blew air into the fire in the cook stove. Her first few nights at the cabin Maggie had let the fire go out overnight, and woke up cursing the process of restarting it. Since, she’d gotten the hang of banking it to keep going overnight, although multiple packs of butane, waterproof matches, and Bic lighters sat in storage under the unused bathroom sink. With the indoor bathroom temporarily defunct- only temporarily, she felt, quite certainly, it had been reduced to a storage room, her cache of propane canisters and other fuel taking up residence in the bathtub, which she reasoned was decently fire-proof, just in case.

While the kettle simmered, waiting to be poured over coffee grounds she frowned absent-mindedly. She’d dreamed last night, and though she couldn’t remember all of it, she had awoken feeling unsettled. As though something would happen today that she might not like. She got a similar feeling when she woke to the smell of rain in the air, and knew she’d be slopping out to the barn in muddy boots, and spending most of the day wet to the bone. Other times in her life she’d woken up early just knowing that the place she was camped out might be raided, or which people she could trust to barter with, and which would try to rook her. Last night she’d dreamed of a large house, and fire, glass blowing outward in an inferno, scattering the street in front of the house with blazing missiles. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought it had something to do with Nick.

While she was mulling over the remnants of her dream, coffee held in a blue ceramic mug in both hands, her guests arrived.

A sound- out of place on the quiet homestead broke her reverie and she stood up quickly, poking the last of her biscuit into her mouth. She chewed and looked out the front window, a slight frown creasing her forehead.  _ Well sonuvabitch. _ Coming slowly up the drive, was a Jeep, a tall, tanned man, a girl with dark reddish hair in the back, old balding man in the driver’s seat, and yes- Nick, pointing over the driver’s shoulder toward the house. The truck pulled up into the yard and Maggie stepped out onto the porch resting her hands on her hips, frown set resolutely on her mouth. She was dressed in a blue flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, jeans, and the flop-tongued black shit kickers she’d worn last night, now laced up properly. When Nick got out smiling, she pointed at him.

“What are you doing here? I thought I took you home.” Nick shrugged and smiled lopsidedly. The driver got out and offered a hand to her, smiling in a friendly down-home sort of way.

“Howdy there. I’m Stu Redmond, this here’s Frannie Goldsmith, and Glen Bateman, and I guess you already know Nick. He was the one talkin’ this place up.” The man was handsome, in a country Gary Cooper, sort of way and Maggie shook his hand, squeezing it firmly, keeping one eye on Nick narrowly, deciding it had been a very bad idea to invite him back yesterday. The majority of the Free Zone Permanent Committee was in her front yard. Including the marshal. 

“Hi. Maggie English.” She said flatly, and folded her arms across her chest, giving Nick a sharp look which he ignored, looking up toward the roof innocently. He turned, tapped the older man- Glen- on the shoulder and pointed.

The older man looked up and his face spread into a look of pleased surprise, “Well, in your vernacular East-Texas, I’ll be dipped in shit. You’ve got a whole roof of solar panels up there don’t you? I’m Glen Bateman.”

“Yeah. Nice to meet you.” Maggie rolled her eyes and remained solidly in front of the door.

“Your house is really nice. Is all this yours? I mean, is it just you?” Frannie said sweetly, and Maggie noted the swell of her belly under her loose fitting top. When Maggie nodded she smiled, “It must be a lot of work on your own is all, to take care of all this. Stu and I just have an apartment, and I don’t even know how I keep that up some days.”

Maggie offered a smile that was mostly teeth, looking pointedly at Nick, “Well, it’s not so bad. When it’s just me, I don’t have any distractions.” She gave them a look that said that she plainly thought they were a distraction, and not a terribly welcome one. She cleared her throat, “Nick- I don’t suppose you can spare a minute from posse-forming, can you?”

Nick pointed at his chest and raised his eyebrows and Maggie tipped her head to the side and stamped her foot in annoyance. “Yes you.” Nick held his hands up to the others and made his way up the steps to the front porch. Maggie stepped inside and Nick joined her, the door shutting hard, not quite a slam, but also not quite  _ not _ a slam either. The other three looked at each other nervously.

“Well hell, she don’t seem glad to see us at all. You’d think being out here on her own, she’d welcome people-” Stu leaned against the hood of the Jeep and lit a cigarette, cupping his hand around the match. Frannie thought of Harold, way out on Arapahoe on his own and shuddered slightly. Maggie didn’t give her the creeps the way Harold did, but she couldn’t imagine not wanting people around either.

Glen considered the situation and shrugged, “We dropped in unannounced. It’s frightfully rude, and given what Nick said about her feelings toward authority and government, she probably thinks she’s being beset upon by the secret police. It wasn’t an uncommon philosophy toward the end of civilization there. And, I might add, she’s not exactly wrong. What are we were for if not to determine if she’s a threat or not?”

“Maybe we should have invited her to our house anyway, Stu, instead of just- showing up on her front step, expecting to be let in.” Frannie worried her thumbnail in her teeth and looked toward the front door of the house.

Behind the door, Maggie was attempting not to fume, her voice low so the others outside wouldn’t hear her. “What on earth would make you bring your people back down here?”

Nick wrote, taking the pad from his pocket and offered it to her, semi apologetically,  _ I had to tell them about you. We could use you. _ He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets, meeting her glittering grey eyes with his warm dark ones evenly. He had expected her to be upset with him initially, but hoped this would blow over and they could all come inside and talk.

“That’s just it- that’s just- that’s just fucking it, isn’t it?” Maggie crumpled the note and tossed it at him and Nick blinked rapidly when it boinked off his nose. “You could use me.  _ That’s _ the whole cussed issue,  _ Mr _ . Andros. All that runs through your head is- how can we use this person? I was  _ there _ at the meeting, you know. My name’s not on the role sheet because I don’t sign things, but I was there. Who can you use to head this committee, or that committee, or to be bodies on the ground? Who can you  _ use _ to nominate you for office? How can you get your initial committee swept into office in the biggest sham election  _ I’ve _ ever seen. I  _ still _ can’t fucking believe that worked. Who can you use for- God only knows what else. Like- the whole population is just a toolbox where you pick out who’s good for what. What happens when somebody outlives their usefulness? What then, huh?” Her jaw set and she looked near tears. A few times she’d thought- rather fondly- of the quiet intelligent dark eyed young man. And he was very attractive, in spite of the chipped teeth, but she’d left Boulder to take herself out of the running for the tool of the month club. “I’m not a  _ tool _ , Nick. People aren’t-  _ tools _ so you can get done whatever you  _ think _ is necessary without even cocking telling them what’s going on-.”

Nick winced and looked down at the rug. Her words were uncomfortably close to his thoughts of a few days ago, as he’d watched Tom Cullen ride away from his colorful toyland-house, like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory gone mad. Her argument was the same that anyone could have made. It outlined quite well all of Nick’s misgivings about being on the committee, in the situation they were in. He thought about Dayna, the Judge, and Tom Cullen. Wasn’t that true? Hadn’t the seven of them sat around to think about who they could best use and how? He was practically minded, and intently focused on doing what he thought was right, unfortunately, some very good people might end up casualties along the way. When he looked back at her, his dark eyes were close to brimming and Maggie felt a pang of guilt for snapping at him, and squelched that feeling quickly. She hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true. _You don’t have to agree to help us, but can we at least come inside? I told them about your setup, and some of your ideas might be things that would help out other members of the Free Zone a lot._ _We’re going to get the power back on, but people are going to want to know what happens next. You already did think of that. _He handed her this, and rested a gentle hand on her shoulder and looked back at her intently.

She scowled at his hand and stuffed his note in her pocket. “Unless you want to be a one-armed deaf-mute, I’d suggest you take your hand off me.” Nick did so quickly, and looked at her apologetically, “Oh Christ.” She sighed tiredly, “Go invite them in, I’ll make some fucking coffee.”

The three standing on the porch all turned eagerly toward the front door when it opened and Nick stepped out, a rueful smile on his lips. He motioned to them to come in and held up a thumb and forefinger circle.

They were arranged around the small tidy living room, Stu and Fran on the little sofa, Glen and Nick in armchairs, and Maggie had pulled over a wooden stool from her spare work room. She perched on it with her feet hooked through the rungs and arms folded across her chest. They gathered around the stove, kettle beginning to chirp merrily on one of the burners. When it worked itself up to an urgent whistle Maggie stood, and poured it over the grounds in the bottom of the coffee maker and depressed the plunger on the press. “Do any of you take cream or sugar?” She wasn’t happy to be entertaining, but that didn’t mean she was going to be a poor hostess out of spite. As much as she would like to, but her mother and grandmother had instilled a sense of Southern hospitality in her too deep for her to ignore it now. Nick looked to the other three with a faint smile on his lips. He’d noted the butter, and fresh milk, and gathered from those that Maggie must have at least one cow out in the barn. He’d left that out of his description to the others though, and noted the surprise on their faces.

Fran was the first to speak up, “Cream- and sugar, if you’ve got it.  _ Do _ you have it?” She blinked hopefully and Stu patted her hand. In Boulder the only milk around was the powdered stuff that had to be mixed with boiled water. Hardly better than the powdered non-dairy creamer that populated rest stop free coffee trailers. Once the refrigeration had kicked off with the power, ready perishables like eggs, milk, cheese, and butter had gone over quickly, and not a few of the cases of food poisoning in Boulder had come from folks trying to make use of those items anyway. Fresh milk, along with fresh breads, was something everyone in town had been craving in an unspoken way. Fran and Lucy had attempted to get a sourdough starter going without much luck so far, making Fran and Stu’s apartment, and Lucy and Larry’s tract house smell rancid a few days at a time.

Maggie turned around, looked at Nick, then at Fran, one hand on her hip. “I offered. Yes, I have both those things.” She opened the fridge in the kitchen and took out a bottle of thick whole milk. A mason jar of sugar was produced with a spoon and she set the items on the side table next to the CB. They all took their coffee with a little cream, even those who usually drank it black, just for the richness of it and Fran closed her eyes to let the thick rich flavor pour across her tongue.

“I’ve been missing milk so much. In Boulder the best we can do is powdered stuff, do you- have a cow here?” Fran blinked up at Maggie, cup cradled in both hands.

“Sure. Of course, I like milk and butter and cheese. Well, I don’t have cheese yet- but I will, eventually. Once I learn how to make it.” She shrugged placidly and again looked at Nick, wondering how much he’d told them about her. Her guard was up and she looked down at the space in front of the stool. “I guess I’d like to know- what on earth you all are doing out here sitting in my living room, drinking my coffee.Ten miles is a ways to come out to say ‘Hi.’ Especially when you’re here with Boulder’s brand new law-man.” She raised an eyebrow at Stu and pursed her lips.

Nick looked uncomfortable, and Stu balked a little, but Glen laughed heartily, clapping a hand on his thigh. “Right to the point of it! Hacking through the Gordion knot in one blow, I do like that.” He laughed again and took a breath before beginning, “Nick came back with some stories to tell. I wanted to see for myself what you’d managed out here on your own. He said you had refrigeration and a freezer, and those are things folks in Boulder have been sorely needing. We’ve had a number of cases of food poisoning as it is, mostly due to poor food storage conditions and people eating things they shouldn’t have. Dick Ellis has been run off his feet trying to keep up with them all.” Nick nodded, confirming Glen’s description readily. “He also said- well, wrote, you know- that you had spent time in the Peace Corps, digging wells and building hand pumps in rural areas. Well water would be a lot cleaner and safer than drinking from polluted streams and tepid reservoirs, and that’s another thing people in Boulder need. I know I for one am getting dog tired of the flat taste of boiled water.”

“You know, if  _ your _ people had sat down to think about what it is humans need to survive, they could have dealt with this on their own.” Maggie’s face screwed up a little and she lifted her eyebrows. “That’s pretty much all I did, really. It’s common sense. Food, water, shelter. I mean- cave men managed it without electricity right on up until and turn of the last century.” 

“Yes, but we’ve had people coming into Boulder in a steady stream, looking for shelter and- for guidance, I suppose. And- then of course, there’s the dreams. They want Mother Abagail, and she’s- not to be found.” He added the last in a rather hushed voice, unsure if this woman would have any idea what he was talking about. Nick hadn’t mentioned it, and he wasn’t sure if Maggie even had the dreams. Or if she did, what sort they were.

“I know the dreams. I dreamed of Mother Abagail- like most of your people did I suppose. And- the Other, out in the West.” She paused and shrugged, growing still, “You’ll notice- I didn’t settle west of Boulder. I like it here just fine. But there seems to be the idea that- a religious conquest is coming, and I don’t believe that. And that Mother Abagail is some kind of- prophet from God, and I don’t believe that either. Her God seems to be a rather grumpy old man in the sky with his finger on the ‘fuck all you mortals’ switch, and I don’t subscribe to that way of thinking.” She finished finally and sipped at her coffee, then shook her head firmly.

Glen, Frannie, and Stu looked at Nick and he shrugged, then wrote,  _ I know you said that. I’m not inclined to believe in the spiritual ramifications of things either. But you have to admit that something strange is going on. I don’t want to believe the other is real, but I do. I do believe that. And we’ve got to be ready for him. _

Glen read his note and Maggie looked to Nick, answering him directly, “You think you’re going to be ready? You know-I bet the bison thought something strange was going on too, and if they have any higher process thinking, I’m sure they thought the remaining ones after the white settlers moved through were on some kind of mission as well. Instead of just being- stragglers. Any species that gets nearly wiped out has to find some way to justify it and wrap their heads around it. Maybe especially humans, because we’re not good at accepting that ‘Shit happens.’ As the bumper stickers and tee shirts say.” 

She hooked her feet in the rungs of her stool again and sat up straighter, “Did you ever think that the rising illnesses- it hasn’t just been Project Blue, or the superflu, you know. There was AIDS/HIV, the bird flu, the swine flu, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, war- all in the past few decades. Did you ever think that maybe all of that was just- the Earth’s way of gearing up to clear the world of the most damaging aspect of the environment? Humanity? Like, ‘So long, thanks for all the fish?” She shrugged and sipped quietly at her coffee for a moment. “I believe that the Other is real, absolutely. And maybe he’s going to find a way to send over a plane laden with bombs into Colorado. So what?”

“What do you mean so what? We have to stop him if we can! He wants to destroy us all, don’t you see that? Don’t you even care?” Frannie was close to tears, holding her coffee cup so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Stu patted her shoulder reassuringly. “We can’t let him just walk in here- and wipe us out!”

“Of course I  _ care. _ But is there a pilot in the audience? Or even a plane? Or- I don’t know, radio detection equipment in Boulder? No, there’s nothing like that here. There’s a burned out weather station, is all. So what can you do? Even if you knew for certain he was coming, and the date, what are you going to do about it? About as much as the Japanese did at Hiroshima.”

“That’s kinda- depressing thinking, don’tcha think?” Stu’s voice was quiet and he set his cup down. “You don’t seem like you’re thinking that way all the time. Looks more to me like- you’re set up to live here a long time, not just till next May or so.” Nick nodded and looked at Maggie pointedly. He wrote,  _ You mentioned wanting to build a water tower & cistern next year. _

“I know what I said.” She said sharply to Nick, and although he couldn’t hear her, her tone showed clearly in her face, in the tense line between her dark eyebrows. “Embrace today fully, but plan for tomorrow.” She thought for a moment and swirled her coffee in the mug. “Look- when nature gets out of whack- nature fixes itself. I think humans started to go out of whack- and were culled. I think- that the Other, is outside the natural order too, so is everyone on his side. He’s- a vacuum of everything, and Nature abhors a vacuum. I think if his- side- makes it to winter, they won’t make it out the other side. I think the world, and whatever guiding principles exist in it will- even him out in due course. Anything outside of the natural order is inherently unstable. Including the artificial systems humans set up in the last few hundred years. And they’ve been wiped out pretty neatly, so now we’re all back to survival of the fittest. Darwinism is back in a big way.” 

“In other words, you think the problem will take care of itself?” Stu looked at her incredulously. He looked to Nick, who was writing hurriedly.

_Mother Abagail believes God means for us to oppose him. That we’re supposed to make a stand, & God will use us to rid the world of the dark man._ _I don’t know about God, but I do believe in Mother Abagail._

“And I think that’s bullshit- I think she believes what she says- but that doesn’t mean  _ I _ have to believe it. And I’m not willing to believe that we’re all on some- religious crusade against some unknown evil- You know what her God likes?  _ Sacrifice. _ You know what dictatorships like? Fucking- sacrifice-” Nick was writing furiously and she paused. 

_I don’t think this is a religious quest. I think the danger is very real._ _We have to know what’s going on to protect the people of the Zone. _Nick handed this directly to Maggie who scoffed and passed it back to him. “Tell that to Mother Abagail, see what she says.”

Nick frowned. He had said that to her, that he didn’t believe in God. She’d only replied that God believed in him. He wondered what Mother Abagail would have to say about Maggie.

“Tell what to Mother Abagail?” Fran broke the contemplative silence and Maggie looked at her a little annoyed. She didn’t much like how Fran continually shrank back against the marshal’s arm when she felt uncomfortable.

“That Nick doesn’t think it’s a religious quest. I don’t think it’s a  _ quest. _ I think it’s just- the way of things right now. The  _ wyrd _ .” Maggie stood up and collected empty mugs, putting them in the kitchen sink basin with a clatter.

“Ah-” Glen sat up a little straighter and Stu and Fran looked at him curiously. Nick’s eyes remained on Maggie, watching her move a little stiffly, and she paused to rub the small of her back before rinsing out cups. He was sore himself this morning, it had been heavy and hard work. His leg felt much better, Doc Richardson had looked at it and proclaimed he’d live this morning, and said there wasn’t much he could do other than put fresh bandage on it, but his shoulders and back still ached sorely.

“What’s that Baldy? Wird?” Stu asked for both he and Fran, looking to Glen.

“ _ Wyrd. _ It’s an old English word, with two meanings. One is- the way, or the path, the other meaning is- the world. Both the words “way” and “world” stem from it.”

Maggie turned and nodded, sitting on the stool once more. “Initially they weren’t separate concepts. The world is the way, the way is the world. Things are what they are, you walk along as best you can.” It was a statement quite similar to Mother Abagail’s God saying, “I Am what I Am,” Nick thought. She coughed and grinned lopsidedly, her eyebrows raised. “So are you all going to arrest me for- blasphemy or conspiracy, or what?”

“What? No!” Stu sat up quickly, suddenly aware of his new role as Boulder’s only lawman. “No, nothin’ like that. Shoot-”

Nick wrote quickly, shaking his head.  _ You out here on your own is suspicious. I think you should be in the Zone for your own safety and that of the other people there. We need to know you’re not going to be dangerous to the Zone or to our plans there.  _ He looked at Maggie seriously and earnestly as he handed this over and her eyes narrowed. Her fist came back hard, connecting with Nick’s jaw and he blinked, standing from the armchair quickly. He felt dull anger thudding behind his eyes. Maggie stood as well, staring him down hotly, one foot back and both hands balled into fists. “I thought you said you could read lips- haven’t you seen a Goddamn thing I’ve said?”

Nick exhaled hard through his nose, even as Stu stood with an outstretched hand to reach between the two. “Holy Hell, you okay Nick? She really clocked you-” Nick nodded absently to Stu, then pointed to his eyes, Maggie’s lips, then made a thumb and forefinger circle. Yes, he read her lips just fine.

“No, obviously you don’t!” She shook her head violently. “Don’t you see that this is the problem? You choose sides and assume anyone who isn’t on your side is automatically against you. What is it- You’re either ‘fer us or agin us,’ isn’t that it? Boulder Free Zone- ‘Love it or Leave it’? It’s all the same  _ cocking _ shit as before Nick!”

Nick looked down at Stu’s hand and brushed it away from his chest. Glen stood slowly as well, his hands raised in a placating gesture, “In short, yes. That’s exactly what we want to be sure of. That you’re not ‘agin’ us.”

“Well I’m not. Not so long as you don’t try and lock me up, or put a cage around me because I make you nervouse. Now I’d like it if you all left me alone please.” She turned coldly and left through the kitchen door, shutting it hard behind her, making the windowpanes rattle in their casements.

“I’m going to go talk to her-” Frannie stood up and stepped around Stu and Nick, patting Stu’s shoulder. “Maybe- a little woman to woman talk would help put things at ease, if we still need her help.”

Glen looked thoughtful as he stood, halfway between the chair and the doorway. “This has been a very informative trip, Nick. You were right that we should talk to her. Although now I think you’ve probably offended her irrevocably with that last. I doubt she’s going to be up in Boulder digging wells any time soon.” He offered a bemused smile and shrugged.

_ I didn’t mean to offend her. _ Nick rubbed his jaw and wiggled it back and forth. She had gotten him pretty good, she’d been angry. He remembered Julie Lawry and was suddenly glad that Maggie wasn’t of a sort to claw at him, he might have lost his good eye instead.

Stu hooked his thumbs through his belt loops and looked down at the floor, his head swirling with the things Maggie had said, about nature, and righting things that were outside of nature. “What if she was right? And we just- sent some of our people out there to get tortured or maybe killed over something that- is going to get straightened out in due course?” The thought of that made him sick, and he thought of the forlorn look on Tom’s face when they had finally told him it was time to go. It wasn’t what that poor sweet feeble boy deserved. He deserved to live out his days in his decorated house, happy and loved and accepted as he had been in the Free Zone. Not sent out like a wind up robot to spy on the enemy and report back or be destroyed. He knew sending Tom had been hard on Nick, and it showed on the young man’s face now. He looked stricken and sick.

“That may very well be. The best we can do in this situation, is to do as we see fit, for the good of the Free Zone.” Glen said gently, and rested a hand on Nick’s shoulder, who brushed him off, almost angrily.

“I’m gonna go wait on the front stoop for Frannie. If this Maggie’s gonna be any help at all, I think we ought to give her time to cool off.”

Nick nodded and watched Stu and Glen head out onto the porch. He crossed the cozy kitchen, and scrubbed out the coffee mugs, wanting to do something by way of setting things right. Maggie’s anger at him, her sudden distrust of him made him feel nauseated and depressed. With the mugs cleaned, he looked up, and saw Fran picking her way out the barn through the window and watched with interest, in his silent movie world. 


	8. Anyone could have done it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie reveals her own distressing dreams

When Fran found Maggie, she was out in the barn, or more accurately- up, in the barn, hoisting up a bale of hay with pulley system up to the loft. When the bale was up to the loft door she leaned out- for a moment Frannie had been certain she would topple out in spite of the woman’s grip on the frame of the opening- and caught the strap surrounding the bale, tugging it inside. Once that bale was settled in its place, she clipped the hook at the end of the rope to her belt and climbed down the ladder again, took another bale from the side of the barn, fastened the straps around it and clipped on the rope again. As she lifted the bale, Fran saw cords stand out on her forearms and wondered how much each of those bales weighed. She was starting up the ladder again when Fran called out.

“Maggie?” She looked up at the other woman, her head cocked to the side. “Can- is there anything I can do to help?”

Maggie looked her over, noticing her pregnant belly for the second time, her eyes pausing there before meeting Fran’s gaze. “Nope. You probably shouldn’t be climbing ladders or hauling anything over about twenty pounds. I can do it on my own just fine.”

Fran thought of carrying her father’s body out to the garden, she’d only been a few weeks along then. Now, months later-  _ was it really months?  _ She found that hard to believe, but it was true. If she was due in January, as the doctor had said, she must be well into four months along now. But she supposed Maggie was right, she shouldn’t be lifting anything. “I just- wanted to apologize. We didn’t mean to come down here and upset you-”

From the ladder, Maggie looked down and rubbed sweat from her forehead with her arm, leaving a muddy streak from the hay dust. Fran sneezed. “Well, you got what you wanted to know. I don’t want any part of this- little chess game you all seem to think you’re in. I just want to put up enough hay to feed my animals through the winter. It’s sure a lot easier without interruptions.” She finished pointedly and looked at Fran.

“I know. Nick was just so- insistent. And I guess, when he insists on something, we usually figure it’s pretty important. He’s a really intelligent guy, and he’s usually the one to come up with- what we should be doing next.”

“Yes, I’ve realized that. Mr. Chairman of the Board, right?” Maggie climbed down the ladder and sat on the prepared bale of hay. “Look- that’s all fine for you guys. Do whatever you think is right in Boulder, but don’t ask me to stay up there and fall in like a good little worker bee.”

Frannie nodded and kicked at the dust in the barnyard, her shoes leaving circle and swirl patterns on the ground. “I’m just really sorry. You know you’re always welcome in Boulder-”

“Little girl, I’ve been in Boulder.” Maggie shook her head. Fran wasn’t that much younger than she was, she supposed, a few years tops, but there was something childlike about her. A little selfish and well- dippy- about her, as though she was still looking for someone guide her along, to take care of her. She wondered if Frannie had been a cheerleader in high school, and guessed she probably had. It wasn’t a fair way to think, but there it was. “If it weren’t for the dreams, I wouldn’t have come out here in the first place, I’d have stayed in Washington where- at least things were familiar. Instead I’m out here in Colorado surrounded by herds of cocking- alpacas.”

Frannie giggled and tipped her head to the side, “What?”

“Alpacas. Driving around here- just between Longmont and Fort Collins, I counted five alpaca farms.  _ Five. _ Each of them with a minimum of thirty animals.” She smiled, rolled her eyes, and shook her head. “No cowboys out here, just alpaca pals. I have some- I picked up one from a close by farm, and a few more found their way over. I guess- they were looking for their herd, and now I have half a dozen. I don’t even  _ want _ that many alpacas- but I don’t know what else to do with them. I guess I’ll have a lot of wool to learn to make yarn with. I don’t know if you can eat them or not.”

“How many animals do you have out here?” Frannie tucked her arms behind her back and raised her eyebrows. She wanted to like Maggie, even though the woman seemed to want nothing to do with any of them. In a way, her earthy way of simply- doing for things- reminded her of Stu. The things she liked in Stu, his ability to look after her, to make her feel safe, Maggie seemed to possess as well. She didn’t doubt the woman’s ability to manage out here, but- wouldn’t she be lonely?

“Six alpacas- unless more have shown up in the past few days. Two dairy cows, one with a calf, and a bull. Two pigs and four piglets, nine hens and two roosters. And a partridge in a pear tree.” She tugged her work glove off and examined the scratch one had given her this morning, “Maybe eight if that goddamned hen doesn’t stop clobbering me every time reach for an egg.”

“Really? All that? All by yourself?” Fran raised her eyebrows. It seemed like an awful lot of responsibility to take care of for one person. 

“Sure. Well- like I said. I was in Boulder. But when I was there, I was making a list of- what I’d need. Shelter, water, food. Plenty of shelter in Boulder, which you know. Food for- the winter, if you like canned stuff. I don’t, even before, I didn’t. And water- not so much. And for fresh food- you need storage. Cold storage needs either- well, there’s ways you can make ice and cool storage jars, but those aren’t good for any quantity.” She pointed up at the house and saw a face in her window, dark eyes watching she and Fran with interest. She ignored him, he could look if he wanted, this far out she didn’t think he could read her lips. “See the panels up there?” Frannie nodded. “And those white boxes on the porch are the solar generators, two batteries each. One hooked to the fridge, one to the freezer, to keep them both running. And one to spare, out in the shop, just in case.”

“Oh. Neat.” Frannie nodded, it was neat. She thought of Perion, when Mark had died of appendicitis, talking about how they were all trained to think, not to do. How Stu, the least educated off the lot of them- if you didn’t count Harold, who certainly thought he was highly educated- had been the only one to take action when Mark was suffering. Mark had still died, but at least he had died with someone trying to make him well. The thought of Harold gave her a faint chill and she rubbed gooseflesh from her arms. “Where did you learn all of this?”

Maggie shrugged. “I’m just not stupid, I guess. No offense to anyone else in Boulder. If you need power, and there’s no electricity, what do you do? Batteries, gasoline generator, or solar power. Or wind power. Gasoline isn’t going to last forever. Batteries run out. I don’t know much about wind power, at least not setting it up. But if the sun goes out- we’ll all be dead anyway. I just looked for- all inclusive kits. Those three came from the Home Depot in Denver. Came with outlets and all I had to do was run extension cords into the house. Some of the ideas- water storage and tubing, I learned overseas, but they’re pretty common sense ideas.” She spoke as if anyone could do it, and Fran supposed anyone could. But no one else in Boulder  _ had _ done it. Each group that arrived seemed to just- be waiting to be told what to do. Milling about, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. They had followed the proverbial star in the sky, and were- what, awaiting the next order from God, or Mother Abagail, Fran supposed.

Maggie leaned back on the hay bale, one gloved hand, one bare hand resting on the prickly surface. The sun beat down on her face as she turned it up toward the sky. If she didn’t have company, she’d have stripped to go swimming during the heat of the day. As it was, now she was stuck entertaining, and now answering this girl’s questions. “Nick said- you were in the Peace Corps?” She opened one eye and peeked at Frannie, then nodded.

“I was.” She closed her eye again and felt Frannie take a seat on the hay bale next to her, and resisted sighing. This was going to be a long day if these strangers didn’t move on quickly.

“I guess- you must have learned a lot there that was pretty helpful. This place is really nice. It reminds me of Mother Abagail’s. Do you have to boil your water?”

“Nope, it comes up from the well pretty clean. Clean enough I guess, I’ve been drinking it for about three weeks and I’m not sick, neither are the animals.” She bobbed her head a little.

“I was in college- before. In Maine.” Frannie offered with a faint smile, and Maggie peered at her through one half open eye. She hadn’t asked what Fran did, because whatever it was- she didn’t do it anymore. She put a hand to her forehead to shield her gaze. “Studying English. I guess that’s not so useful.”

Maggie shrugged amiably. “Depends how you use it. I majored in history, which is useful if you want to teach, I suppose. Not so useful if you want to be an optimist. But when I was in Boulder there were plenty of people with educations they weren’t using. Nick said- or wrote- that he was kind of a drifter, and now he’s holding political office. And somehow I think the marshal didn’t exactly study law enforcement before he landed in Boulder.” She looked at Frannie wryly and smirked.

Frannie blushed and looked down at her hands. “He worked in a calculator factory. Putting- microchips in those graphing calculators.” Maggie’s face was unsurprised. A long moment of silence passed between them, with Frannie twisting her fingers together like small injured animals. “I’m sorry Maggie, we didn’t mean to come down here so- suspicious. Everyone is just- very scared right now, and since Mother Abagail left, we’ve been kind of- unsure about where to go from here. I know we’d all feel a lot better if we could run things by her, and right now- we just can’t. I guess- Nick and Glen are our practical idea men, and they both seemed so- gung ho to come down here.” She sighed, and was surprised to find it came out a half-sob. “And I just feel- so terrible-” Her lower lip quivered and she brushed a hand under her eyes, blinking tears back. “God- I’m just the picture of the pregnant woman. Giggles or tears at the drop of a hat-”

Maggie sat up a little straighter, disquieted by Fran’s tears. She patted the girl’s shoulder a little stiffly. “Uhm- there there?”

Fran turned to her, and the look on Maggie’s face, concerned and half afraid, as if she, Fran, were a china egg Maggie had been instructed to sit on, made her smile, then laugh out loud. She pictured Maggie clucking like one of the hens in the yard and laughed harder, holding her sides. Maggie looked at her as if she might be insane. “I’m- I’m sorry-” Frannie giggled harder, shaking her head. “I was just- you looked at me so funny- and I guess- there’s been so much going on lately- I feel a little hysterical-”

Maggie leaned forward and rested her elbows on her dusty knees, looking at the farmyard between her boots. “Yeah- I know. I haven’t been sleeping that well lately. I guess that’s why my fuse has been so short.” She looked at Frannie sternly, “Not that I’d be thrilled with the secret police dropping in on me any day of the week, but- the dreams don’t help.”

Frannie’s giggles cut off as if someone had suddenly shut the valve of laughter off inside her and she blinked. “Are you- still having them? The dreams? No one else has- for weeks. Not since we got to Boulder-”

Maggie tugged her other glove off and rubbed at her eyes. She suddenly felt very- dirty and tired. “Not- the same as the others when I was driving out, but similar.” She exhaled slowly. “When I was about twelve, I had very vivid dream of grey skies, and a ship out in the ocean, and I remember- really clearly seeing a big bearded man in an orange slicker crying for help in the water. Two days later, it was on the news, a fishing boat caught in a storm. One of the men on board was washed over the side and drowned. They showed his picture on the news, brown hair, bushy brown beard. Orange slicker.” 

She shuddered slightly and Fran saw gooseflesh running up the other woman’s arms. When she looked down at her own arm she saw the skin there explode in a rash of raised bumps as well. Maggie continued, “Four nights ago I dreamed- about a big house on a hill, with huge glass windows that you couldn’t see into. Reflective or something. And then you could see in- because the interior of the house was glowing, and glass shattered outward, the house swarming with flames and smoke. I didn’t think it was anything, but I dreamed it again last night, and people screaming, and the house was surrounded by motorcycles, glass everywhere. I’ve had that dream every night since-” She shook her head, near tears herself as she finished talking. She buttoned up though, her lips pressing into a firm line. 

“Did you tell Nick about that dream?” Fran looked back at her, her brow knotted with worry.  _ Ralph and Nick live up on a hill, and their house has that reflective glass. _ She rested her hands on her stomach, suddenly afraid for her baby, for all of them. Unbidden, she thought of Harold and his ledger, and another chill ran through her.


	9. Peace talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> D'accord.

Sweet smelling pipe smoke drifted off into the afternoon sunlight as Glen puffed away on the porch, settling next to Stu. The Jeep gleamed mellowly in front of them. The old professor looked over his shoulder, saw Nick leaning on the kitchen window, looking out into the farmyard. Stu followed his gaze and raised his eyebrows. “What do you make of it Baldy?”

Glen chuffed at his pipe thoughtfully for a long moment. “I think- I’ve never seen the boy quite like this.” He puffed chummily at his pipe and Stu considered Nick. Clearly some of the things Maggie had said, had hit him hard, in a place that was still tender after seeing Tom off. Stu felt it too, but at least he could rest knowing he could talk it out with Frannie later. Nick didn’t have that luxury, with anyone. He couldn’t even talk it out he’d have to write it, Stu realized.

“Yeah, some of the things she said- they hit me pretty hard too. Wish she was more inclined to help us out, that’s for sure.” Stu took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one stale one with a sigh, his smoke mingling with Glen’s. “Nick though, he takes that stuff to heart. Can’t seem to help it.”

“Mmm- very true, East Texas, but that wasn’t what I was referring to.” Glen looked back at the dirt driveway that lead up to the little homestead. His eyes traced the lines of what looked like small old-fashioned street lights that lined either side of the driveway. Each one had a square blueish panel on top, and Glen supposed that they were also solar powered, set to come on when the ambient light got low and run from the stored power. He’d noticed quite a few lanterns, gas, battery, and the curious hanging lamps with LED bulbs in the living room and kitchen. Maggie seemed to have many more lights than anyone in Boulder did, and he imagined that out here in the country, it felt all the more necessary to keep the darkness at bay, without any other people around.

“No?” Stu looked surprised, and turned to watch Nick again. From here, he saw the young man’s back rise and fall in a sigh. He thought he heard Frannie giggling madly somewhere behind him and a half-smile stole across his face.

“Mm, no, not at all East Texas. You don’t see it, do you?” Glen smiled and looked rather pleased with himself. He held up the index finger of each hand, muttering around the stem of his pipe, “You-” he waggled the index finger of his right hand, “Fran.” He waggled the other finger, and brought them together. “Larry-” He repeated the motion, “Lucy.” He looked at Stu and lifted his grey eyebrows, “Ralph-” another waggle, “Elise,” fingers brought together. “Humans are social creatures, Stu, we’ve seen that first hand. In the advent of disaster, they want to get together.” He held up his index fingers again, wiggled his right hand, “Nick-” He opened his other palm, an open question to Stu.

Stu looked between Nick’s shape, seen through the open front door, and Glen’s hands. “Nick and- hell, I don’t know, Glen. You think- he’s stuck on Maggie? She just clocked him in the face.” He drew on his cigarette and coughed, shaking his head, “I don’t know about that Baldy. He don’t seem to take much notice of anybody around the Free Zone like you’re talkin’ about. And most everybody paired up pretty quick. The ones that have- paired up, like you say, mostly came in that way after traveling across the country. And if you’re talkin’ like that, where’s your uh- other finger, huh?”

“I am an old man Stuart, I was married, and we never had children. I don’t see any great reason to go on procreating in my golden years. Nick is a young man though, younger than anyone else on the committee for that matter, except for Fran, and she’s with child.” He tapped the bowl of his pipe against the heel of his shoe, emptying it. “Although I imagine not being able to talk out loud makes it rather difficult, he doesn’t have any trouble making himself understood.”

“Well, yeah, but- All right if you say so Baldy. But she- she seems downright pissed at him. And Nick’s pretty settled in Boulder, and she don’t look like she’s interested in packin up and moving anytime soon.” Stu shook his head more firmly than before and looked up when he heard footsteps crossing the living room. He looked up and saw Nick approaching them, and the younger man sat to Stu’s right with a faint sigh. “Well- what’s up, Nicky?”

_ I think we still need to ask her if she’ll show us how to build those pumps.  _ Nick looked a little disheartened and Stu clapped him on the shoulder, rubbing gently.

“Yeah- how about the other stuff? All that- nature, God talk? Seems like it’s kinda weighin’ on ya.” Stu looked back at him and tipped his head to the side. Nick shook his head and brushed the other man’s hand away with a firm hand, looking away. His way of saying ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ He picked up the notepad and circled the word “pump.”

“I agree. Until we hear back from one of our- spies, or operatives, we need to think about what’s going to best serve the citizens of the Free Zone. Clean water is going to be a top priority.” Glen stood slowly, with his palms pressed to his knees. “We can certainly hope Fran managed to smooth things over some, since we’re here asking favors. Although an apology from you might go a long way, Mr. Andros.” He raised a sardonic eyebrow at Nick, who rolled his eyes. “It’s up to you.”

Nick frowned a little and wrote,  _ She’s the one who clobbered me. _ He tapped the pad and looked intently back at the older man.

“Yes, so I saw. That doesn’t change that shortly after that she tried to shoo us all out of her living room.”

Nick groaned inwardly and sighed, doodling in the margin of his notepad. Finally he nodded glumly and stood, making his way around the house to the back yard. He saw Fran and Maggie sitting together on one of the hay bales, looking rather serious. Frannie’s giggles had dissipated, and he couldn’t quite read Maggie’s expression from where he stood. He knocked lightly against the wall of the cabin to get their attention. He wrote,  _ Fran, do you mind if I talk with Maggie for a moment? _ He handed the note to Fran, who looked between the two of them, then nodded. “Sure Nick, I’ll be- out front with Stu and Glen, I guess.” She offered Maggie a gentle smile and stood, dusting hay from her backside. Nick looked at her gratefully, and nodded.

He thought Maggie regarded him with faint suspicion as he took a seat next to her on the hay bale. The air around them as fragrant with good grassy smells and he took a breath before starting to write.  _ I wanted to apologize for- _ he paused, searching for just the right word,  _ -insinuating that you might join the Adversary. I don’t really think you would do that. I’m not going to detain you. Stu either. We’re all just scared.  _ She smoothed her palms over her jeans, drying the sweat from them, twisting her work gloves in her hands.

“Thanks.” Her face remained impassive, and if Nick could have heard her tone, he would have heard the flat echoless way she spoke. He looked down to write again, chewing on the tip of the ballpoint a little.  _ We still need your help. People in Boulder are still having to cart water in from creeks and streams. A well system would be a real morale booster. And would help people keep from getting sick, drinking bad water. _

Maggie frowned when she read this note and blinked, folding it neatly into halves, then quarters, creasing it with her short rather grubby fingernails. She blinked back moisture that rose to her eyes and let out a slow weary exhale.  _ You’re apologizing so that I’ll do what you want me to do.  _ It felt like a scummy trick. A hand on her arm caught her attention and she looked up to see Nick looking at her and concern shown clearly in his eyes. His feelings showed clearly in his face, sadness and worry, guilt and fear, and a strange loneliness inside him that the company of his friends didn’t quite reach. “Well, cock,” she swore and he blinked, starting slightly. “If you really want, I’ll teach some of your people to build wells. But I’m not going to do it because you’re here apologizing to me-” she poked a firm dusty finger at his chest and Nick sat up a little straighter. “-I’ll do it for the same reason I did it overseas. Because it’s something people need, that I can help with. And I want something in return. So long as we’re  _ negotiating.” _ Nick missed the tone of the last word, but caught the sense of it in her expression. 

She sighed heavily and looked around the grounds. The memory of her dream was still fresh in her mind after telling Fran about it. It haunted her uncomfortably, making even the bright afternoon sun seem a little dim and tainted, draining the warmth from the light. It made her feel morose and anxious.

There was still a lot to do before winter. Not just putting up hay, but repairing fences around the barn. The alpacas were wonderfully docile animals and banded together wherever the food was readily, but come winter, she was going to want to be more careful about keeping the coyotes- and the wolves- out. She wanted to head down to Denver to check out some of the farm supply stores for tanks and fencing, and the Home Depot up there for some kind of laundry solution. Even after just a few weeks, scrubbing by hand was getting old. Drying clothes on the line, or on racks in front of the stove wasn’t a problem, but using a bucket and powdered soap was both exhausting and time consuming. That might take a full day of itself, and then who knew how many more days running fence and dealing with water systems for the animals? Hard enough on good solid rest, without her sleep broken up by disturbing dreams-

_ Don’t think about that. _

Maggie’s breath hitched and she rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead, her face turned away from Nick. He tapped her shoulder lightly and waited for her to look back at him. He raised his eyebrows and cocked his head to the side, drew a question mark in the air. He wrote,  _ Are you all right? _

She flapped a hand at him, dismissing the question. “Teaching people to build these is going to take time, Nick. It takes about a week from dug well to finished pump, if you have two people working at it, and you have to cast the cement caps from scratch- which I guess we’re going to have to. And- there’s a lot I need to do here, to make sure I’ll be all right for the winter-”

Nick nodded and looked down at the notepad in front of him, grasping what she meant. Helping out people in Boulder would mean time taken away that she needed to build her home out here. He wrote,  _ What if you had help here? _ He nudged her elbow with the pad and she looked down at it. When her eyes turned back to his, her eyes were hopeful, with sadness lingering behind them. He wondered briefly if she was lonely out here. Nick nodded eagerly and pointed at at his chest.

“You’re going to help me? Aren’t you kind of busy being Chairman of the board?” Her smile was dry and a little hard, one eyebrow cocked.

Nick made a pushing gesture with both hands and nodded. He wrote at some length and Maggie leaned in, curious, starting to read what he was writing over his shoulder before deciding that was probably quite rude. She resigned herself to waiting until he was finished, one heel kicking against the hay bale. He tapped her arm and handed her the note he’d written.

_ Not so busy. I help at the plant sometimes, but it’s difficult not being able to hear anyone. Our next committee meeting is scheduled for 8pm on the 2nd. We’re going to have some other people presenting projects, on law, the power plant, burial committee, and George Richardson- he’s our doctor in the Free Zone. I think that might be a good time to talk about digging wells and Dr. Richardson can make suggestions about drinking water too. If you don’t mind giving me a ride back there, I can spend the next two days helping you out here, and maybe we can get a few more people from the Zone to come back and help afterward. I know how to run fence and put up hay, I’ve done it before. _

An eerie thought flitted across her mind,  _ The committee is the old way, HIS way,  _ and she shuddered faintly, then tapped the paper. “You realize this is everything I hate, right?”

Dutifully, Nick nodded.

“Yeah, so long as you realize it.” She rolled her eyes and Nick smiled happily. Working on a farm was something he could do. His mother had had a farm, and it was familiar work to him, much more familiar than holding office, and meetings, and trying to decide what to do about laws and trade and building a civilization. It was how he’d survived six years of wandering the country, drifting from place to place, catching on to pick apples on one farm, run fence on another, hold sheep for shearing somewhere else. There was always work to do, and extra hands were usually welcome. This he could do. He offered a hand to her and Maggie shook it.


	10. Mr. Comedian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life on the farm

Nick stood on the porch, waving to the other three as Stu backed the Jeep down the driveway. He felt a little lighter now. Maggie had forgiven him, and accepted his offer of help, and he resolved to make himself useful. If she was willing to help the Free Zone for free, he would make certain she was repaid in some way, and he mused that this might be exactly how trade started. Compensation for some skill or ability that one person had that others needed. He looked back at Maggie and held his hands out in an open gesture, handing over direction to her.

“Well, what I was doing, was hauling hay up to the loft- if you think you can get up the ladder on your bum leg, you can pull it up and stack it up there.” She looked back at him with her hands on her hips, eyebrows raised. “How is your leg by the way? Did your doctor up there take a look at it?”

Nick nodded and made a thumb and forefinger circle. It was A-okay. She clapped him on the shoulder and nodded, then jerked her thumb toward the backyard. “All right then. Hop-a-long, Cassidy.” Nick looked at her puzzled, then laughed silently, dark eyes shining as he walked around the house toward the barn.

Pulling up her truckload of hay took the better part of the afternoon, and by the time they were finished, Nick’s sore leg was aching and wanted rest, and he felt dirty and tired, but also slightly exhilarated. It had been too long since he’d done any physical work, even though it had long been a part of his daily life. Between walking, hitchhiking, working on farms and ranches, and then biking across half the countryside with Tom, he’d been accustomed to being active. He’d been getting soft in the Free Zone, overseeing projects and making notes, and not doing as much manual labor as he’d been used to. He climbed down the ladder, dropping the last few feet and turned to Maggie, wiped a hand across his forehead in an exaggerated manner.

She laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty tired too. It’s only about three o’clock though, still plenty of daylight.” She paused and dusted her gloved hands over her jeans, “Thank you though, for your help Nick. I’d have been working on that all day by myself. I probably wouldn’t have finished until close to dark.”

Nick shrugged and made a pushing gesture with one hand.  _ Don’t worry about it. _

Maggie tugged off her work gloves and held her hand out for the extra set Nick was wearing. His had come from a box of miscellaneous farm tools in the storage shed that she wasn’t quite finished going through yet. She rubbed her wrists and flexed her hands, relishing the sweaty-dirt smell. A gentle hand tapping her shoulder drew her attention and she looked back at Nick. He was holding his notepad, turned toward her,  _ What’s next? _

“Well. I need to water the animals, and see how many alpacas I have today. They seem to come in when I’m not looking and join up with their old herd. I need to check for eggs before dark, and I want to pick some of the tomatoes that haven’t gone over, and set them aside for canning, and chop some wood for fire.” She sighed for a moment and ran her fingers through her sweaty hair, making it stand on end, momentarily overwhelmed with the sheer volume of work involved in just getting started. “I was planning to build a secondary wood pile between those two trees over there, just this side of the creek, and string some cable along the backside to hold it stable. Can I see that?” She gestured to his notepad and he nodded, passing it to her with the pen. Maggie drew a series of three line, with wires looping in a loose sine-wave pattern through them. “Like that, see?”

Nick nodded, made a chopping gesture with his hands and pointed to his chest. “If you want to chop wood, go ahead and chop. The axe is next to the barn there, and there’s a whole pile of logs.” Maggie pointed, and Nick looked at the heap of wood curiously. Some of it had come from felled trees, and he saw a diesel powered chainsaw in the woodshed as well. Some were a little too polished for that and he smiled ruefully when he realized she’d taken apart log-furniture as well, maybe some from this house, maybe some from the other cabins and buildings nearby. He shook his head and picked up a hefty log and set it on a wide tree stump. From the corner of his eye he saw Maggie pull up the bottom edge of her flannel shirt and use it to wipe her face with, revealing a tanned strip of stomach that made his internal temperature rise a few degrees.

When she didn’t seem to notice him, he watched her pick up the end of a hose attached to one of the rain barrels, and use it to fill a five gallon bucket of water, which she poured into the pigs’ water trough. She returned, repeated the process with the cows’ water tank, several times. His eyes traced the line of Maggie’s back as she turned the handle on the pump over the well, bringing water up from it, sending it through a flexible hose attached to the outflow pipe. Suddenly, her eyes were on him and he felt himself flush. From this far away he couldn’t see her lips clearly, but she pointed to the axe in his hand, to the log in front of him, then tapped her ear. In short,  _ I don’t hear you chopping. _ He rolled his eyes and swung the axe, seating it in the log, then lifting it and bringing it down hard, splitting the hard wood in two with a splintering sound he felt more than heard, all the way up his arms. 

Once she heard the chopping fall into a steady rhythm, Maggie continued on, filling water buckets, and shaking hay from the bales in the lower part of the barn into the alpaca feed bin and replaced some of the chickens’ bedding as well, collecting an armful of late afternoon eggs. The day had turned out hot and clear and she was going to relish a nice cooling shower once all this was done. She mused over the rain barrel connected to the shower. Each of the rain barrels sat up on concrete blocks, lifting them up off the ground, in case things got soggy underneath, and were equipped with a hose near the top to guide excess water away from the base of the house if things got really wet for any length of time. With the regular afternoon rains, she hadn’t hardly had to pump water up from the well, except for to water the animals with, and that made life a little easier. Still, it would be nice to have warmer water for the shower without having to heat it quite so much. She brushed a hand absently through her hair, thinking of the greenhouse room that her grandparents had built onto their back deck. Even on grey December days the greenhouse had been hot and humid. 

_ I suppose a green house around it might work- _ and she jogged back to the house to make a note of that. Maggie sat on a bucket, facing the back of the shower room, sketching out a loose framework that could be placed over the water barrel to let in sunlight and heat the air around it. A gutter system might work to draw water in, and provide a wider base for catchment.  _ Still, it would be nice to hook up to a water tower, or a well with a real pump and just have running water in the house. Then I wouldn’t have to go through all these Rube Goldberg machinations just to get clean once in a while.  _ She shook her head and turned her attention back to the design, making notes to the side of supplies she would need. Glass, or old windows would work. A glass shower door might be perfect for the side, and would allow her easy access to the hothouse. Build it wide enough, and it would also work as an actual greenhouse, to start early vegetables and grow hearty herbs through the winter.

Lost in her designing, she was oblivious to the lack of sound when Nick finished chopping the stack of supplied wood and she started wildly as he rested a hand on her arm. She flailed on the bucket and toppled off the side, the bucket clattering away noisily. She looked up with irritation at Nick’s silently laughing face as the man took a step back and doubled over, a grin stretching his face. He pointed to her and mimed her reaction, waving his arms and copied her shocked expression. He sat down on the ground and held his head in his hands. Maggie grabbed up a handful of dust from the back yard and threw it at him, the cloud exploding around his head.

“Oh shut up.”

Nick cupped a hand over his mouth, his eyes watering with mirth and shook his head. This only made him laugh harder until he lay back, his hands clutching his stomach, gasping for air. Maggie kicked at him with a booted foot and he rolled out of the way, still grinning. His arms were sore, and now his stomach felt fluttery and weak from laughter, but God, if he didn’t feel good. His body felt warm and strong after using it for an afternoon, and a good solid kind of tiredness had settled into his muscles that told him he’d been doing something useful. And Maggie’s scowl with a grin behind it didn’t do anything to make him feel less mirthful. He snatched a handful of dirt from the yard and chucked it at her, coating her face with dust. The sight of her monochromatic face, eyelashes and brows all chalked one even tan shade until she looked like a clay figurine with lively grey eyes peering out of it made him laugh all over again.

“Oh, this is funny?” She stood up and made a show of dusting primly at the seat of her jeans. “I see how it is.” She shook her head and Nick sat up, holding his head in his hands, tears making clean streaks down his sweaty cheeks. “Mhm, so funny, Mr. Comedian-” She wiped dust from her arms and strolled over to the rain barrel next to to the barn and calmly unwound the hose, aiming it at Nick. “You know, Mr. funny-man, you’ve gotten all dirty rolling around on the ground-” Nick looked up at her and gaped, holding his hands up, shaking his head, scrabbling away on his hands and the soles of his feet. Maggie nodded and pulled the trigger on the sprayer, hitting him with a wash of lukewarm water, soaking him thoroughly. Now she laughed, eyes glittering out of her dusty face as Nick shook water from his dark hair.

Nick stood, eyebrows raised and beckoned to her and she shook her head, still laughing. “Oh no-” She turned and sprinted away from him, heavy boots thudding on the hay-strewn dirt of the farmyard and Nick gave chase, dripping water from his shirt and hair as he ran after her. With his longer legs he caught up to her halfway to the pasture on the far side of the barn, bum leg or no, and grabbed her with an arm around her waist. He hoisted her, wriggling to his shoulder and then turned toward the creek that ran across the pasture, from one side of the property to the other. On the near side of the stream, thirty yards beyond the newly built wood pile the water was fast moving but shallow and he dumped her in. He stood on the bank, his hands on his hips, dripping and grinning as she looked up at him shocked and soggy, sitting in water up to her chest.

“Ohhh!” Maggie shrieked, unheard by Nick and wiped dirty water from her face with her hands and splashed water at him. “You asshole!” His grin broadened as he took a few steps back, seeing her ready to chase him this time. She pushed out of the water, soaking, and he swallowed when the soft material of her shirt clung to her narrow frame. Dry, she could have been mistaken for a boy, but with the wet fabric pasted to her skin, the smooth curves of her shape and breasts showed through clearly. His grin faltered briefly and then her shoulder was against his stomach, pushing him backward, landing him hard on his backside.

Nick exhaled hard, the ground rising to meet his back roughly, knocking what wind was left in his lungs out of him. Maggie scrabbled up a handful of grass and leaves and dumped them on his head, stuffing another handful down the front of his shirt while Nick squirmed under her. She was stronger than she looked, he’d thought her kind of skinny and almost dainty- she was so much shorter than he was, but he’d also seen her hauling bales of hay all afternoon and supposed he should have known better. Finally, he grabbed her wrists and rolled them over, pinning her hands out to her sides. She panted up at him, eyelashes spiked with water and his hair dripped down onto her upturned face. She stopped wriggling for a moment and looked up at him, panting lightly Electricity seemed to pass between them and Nick was suddenly aware of the warmth of her skin under his hands, the sunbrowned heat of her. When he swallowed, his throat clicked dryly.

A long moment seemed to pass with Nick looking down at her, until his stomach rumbled and she smiled, a grin tugging playfully at the corner of her mouth, pulled by an invisible thread. She looked back at the house, then at Nick. “I should get some kind of food going for dinner, Nick.” She wriggled and tugged lightly where his hands still pinned hers and he released her, sat back on his heels and nodded. She poked at his stomach and arched an eyebrow. “Hungry?” He nodded again, his heart still thudding crazily in his chest. Nick forced a smile through his daze and wiggled his fingers in front of his stomach. He pointed at his chest, then toward the outhouse off to the side of the house, downhill and downstream from her well, attached to the house with an umbilical chord of solar Christmas lights, needing a minute to clear his head in a private space.

“So go on then, you don’t need my permission.” Maggie made a shooing motion and waited for him to stand up. He offered her a hand and she took it, letting him pull her up to her feet before giving her a long silent look and heading across the yard to the outhouse.


	11. Biodegradable and Phosphate Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evening and supper and traded glances

Maggie’s head swam as she ran water into the sink basin from another hose attachment hooked to the ‘house’ rain barrel, washing her hands and arms. Her mind kept wandering over the way he’d looked down at her and she shook her head firmly at the idea.  _ No way. Bad enough I’ve gotten coerced into showing up at their meeting- _ again that thought ran through her mind,  _ The committee is the old way, the old ways are HIS ways starting everything up again- _ and she shuddered, gooseflesh running over her arms. She scrubbed them away and dried her hands on a towel. She started to undo the buttons on her shirt before remembering her company and moved to her bedroom to change into dry clothes.

_ Oh hell’s bells, he doesn’t have anything to change into. _ Maggie rolled her eyes at her own stupidity and began to rifle through the dresser. Most of her clothes would be vastly too small for him. From a lower drawer she pulled out a pair of nylon basketball shorts that reached her knees and a baggy tee she usually slept in. “That will have to do, I guess, until his stuff is dry.” She held the clothes up doubtfully and frowned, then tossed them onto the bed to strip her wet jeans and flannel off, having to peel them off her wet skin. She changed into drawstring pants and a tank top and rubbed her wet hair with a hand towel, strands standing out around her head.

Both bedrooms of the cabin were small, with narrow closets. Maggie had obtained, from careful scouring of thrift stores and furniture shops in Loveland, a double bed for her room with a wrought iron frame, and a dresser and stand up wardrobe with doors for her hanging clothes, not that it mattered much if anything was hung up. There was no one to dress up for way out here. Both the closet in her bedroom and her workroom had been converted to storage. Just as her flammables and lights were kept in the bathroom, now the closets contained dry goods and extra food supplies, including some of the much hated dried powdered milk, just in case. A cheerful red and yellow blanket covered her bed, warming the room with its bright color. From a box underneath the bed she pulled out an extra blanket and pillow and carried them out to the living room, nearly colliding with Nick.

“Oh!” She blinked and he held his hands up apologetically.

Reaching into his pocket, Nick took out his notepad and pen. The notepad dripped onto the wood floor and he lifted his eyebrows to her questioningly, making a writing motion with his other hand.

“Shit, I’m sorry Nick. Put that by the fire and I’ll get you some dry paper-” Maggie shook her head at her own foolishness. “I didn’t even think that you had that in your pocket. With your paper wet you’re really incommunicado-”

Nick started slightly at her choice of words. It recalled the movie he’d seen as a kid, that word, INCOMMUNICADO, out of touch, as he’d been before Rudy, and writing. He shrugged and nodded and Maggie disappeared momentarily to a spare room and reappeared with a spiral notepad and a fresh pen, although his ballpoint seemed all right. He thumbed through the book, seeing a few snatches of Maggie’s rather run-together scrawl. For a moment he was grateful he didn’t have to depend on reading her handwriting to communicate, the letters all seemed to blend into one another, with dots and crossings of t’s or f’s thrown in haphazardly, apparently for seasoning. He tapped one of the pages with his pen, then pointed at Maggie, lifting his eyebrows.

“Yes, it’s mine, no fair peeking.” She waved a hand at him and blushed slightly.  _ I couldn’t even if I wanted to. What do you do, write with your left foot? _

He grinned amiably when she read this and then whapped his shoulder with the notebook. “Wiseass.” Maggie offered the shorts and tee to him. “These are probably the closest I’ve got that will fit you, unless you want to go to town and get something new.” Nick took the clothes and nodded his thanks, then looked around, pointed to the three doors behind him questioningly. “Oh right, you can change in-” she paused, debating sending him to her bedroom, then directed him toward the work room. “My- work- sewing- well- my extra room.” She put her hands on his shoulders and turned him in that direction, feeling flushed and strange, thinking of him stripped bare a few feet away. She shook the thought off and turned back to the kitchen and opened up her battered- in all senses of the word- cookbook and began to thumb through it slowly.

Nick nodded and stripped in the guest room, putting his wet clothes on a wood stool. As he pulled on the nylon drawstring shorts and tied them Nick took a moment to look around the room. They fit decently enough, and he imagined they must be enormous on her. That was a cute thought. What had once been a bedroom, had been stripped and converted. A small writing desk in one corner was spread with pages of designs and diagrams, of her shower stall, with a list of materials. He picked up one sheet and read it with interest, puzzling out her handwriting with the help of the diagram.

_ Pump to kitchen (slr) + backup oil pump? submersible to creek(?) _

_ wtr to ckstove. steel connect to tank?  _ _ drainage _ _ . _

_ pvc pipe/glue _

_ lye- ohouse *how to make lye? *how to make lye soap? lk in Lvlnd lib. _

_ *yeast starters _

_ *flour? corn/wheat, grind? NE field/wht/oat _

And sitting on top, a leather bound book, in more coherent language, without diagrams. He looked over his shoulder and turned it over, reading the open pages, as well as he could.

_ 8.14 _

_ ‘If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun. _

_ Ratification? Who are we Declaring our freedom from? How far does that freedom go? Funny, as soon as they voted to be ‘free’ I started to feel hemmed in.  _

_ 8.26 _

_ Marshal. So it starts again like this? How long before we have generals and prisons and terrorist warnings again? Code red? How long before marshal law? _

_ Do not forget, that ‘where there is authority, there can be no freedom.’  _

_ 8.28 _

_ Dreamed again of fire and (explosion?) some kind of blast. 2nd time in a week. It feels dangerous. It makes me afraid to go into town where houses like that exist, I don’t want to be around if that one turns out like the fishing accident dream. _

Nick frowned and set the book down and pulled the tee over his head. It fit closely, but well enough he guessed. The words in her journal troubled him, although he wasn’t sure why, and he ran his fingers through his hair, and stepped out into the living room. He saw Maggie leaning over on the kitchen counter, facing away from him and swallowed hard, taking in the smooth curve of her backside in the loose linen pants, and not a hint of a line.  _ Jesus. _ He resisted the urge to touch and see, barely, and tapped her shoulder, holding up his wet dirty clothes.

“Oh! Fuck- sorry-”She blinked back at him and shook her head, “Snuck up on me again.” Nick shrugged apologetically and lifted up the soggy clothes a little, raised his eyebrows. “Put them in the tub next to the stove, I figured I might as well wash them all at once. Yours and mine, I mean.”

Nick nodded and did as she asked and joined her at the kitchen worktop, mimicking her posture, leaning over it with his chin in his hands. Spread out in front of them was a recipe for meatballs and he raised his eyebrows and tapped the book. He wrote on the pad,  _ That looks delicious. _

Maggie read his note and nodded. “That it does. I have some dried pasta, although I’m going to have to learn to make my own at some point. She tore off a corner of the notepad and wrote “psta mkr” on it and tucked the scrap into the front of her cookbook, which was already bulging with similar notes. “Something to pick up when I get to town. Pretty soon this house is going to be so full of shit, I won’t be able to turn around-” She left Nick at the worktable and crouched to rummage in a cabinet under the counter, emerging successfully with a hand-crank meat grinder, still packed in the box. She pulled it loose, stripped off plastic wrapping and styrofoam, reflecting briefly that it would probably be a long time before anything was packed in styrofoam again, and clamped it to the work top. “I have one for coffee too- but I don’t think I should mix them, you know?” Nick nodded in agreement, then wrote,  _ Where did you get that? _

“Hardware store. They had a whole bunch of things like this- my coffee grinder is supposed to work for peanuts and dried corn too, at least- that’s what the box said. My grandparents had a coffee grinder like this, I used to love sitting in their kitchen, playing with it and putting one bean at a time through it, watching the gears munch them up.” She shrugged a little sadly, Nick thought, and his heart went out to her. That was one thing he had been spared in the flu epidemic, all his family- the ones he knew anyway, had been dead for at least ten years before Captain Trips was even an inkling of an idea in the mind of whoever invented it.

Nick hesitated before writing,  _ Did they go in the flu? _

She shook her head and took out some of the beef they had packed away the previous day. Her freezer was nearly full, and while she supposed she should go light on some of the fresh supplies, she had a whole yard full of animals. She flipped open the cookbook again and made another note,  _ smoker _ underneath  _ psta mkr _ . “No, they were old even when I was little. They both died- a year apart, five or six years ago.” Nick nodded and watched Maggie work quietly. Meat from the fridge was taken out and cubed, salted, and mixed with some herbs from spice jars- rosemary, basil, thyme. As she worked,she talked, seemingly unmindful as to whether Nick was paying attention or not, or could see her lips or not, as she turned around a few times to pick out another spice or rinse her knife in the sink basin.

“I’d like to get a smoker, it would make it easier to store meat, I think. I could make my own bacon- I’m not sure how to cure that though. I think I saw a video about it once, letting the bacon hang out in the air for two weeks, or six weeks or something like that. I’m not sure how I feel about doing that though, or how to keep animals away from it. Especially here wh-” she turned away from him and Nick missed a portion of whatever followed, “-rying about how much I’ll need stored. But if I figure winter is- four months long, that’s sixteen weeks. Out here I guess it might be-” another gap where she turned around to grab a large ceramic bowl and position it on a stool under the open outgoing spout of the grinder, “-another cow would be good to have, the calf- I think it’s female will be a yearling next spring, and that’s probably enough to at least breed a few more cows to use for meat too. Although there are plenty just bovining around the fields now, a lot of them will get picked of by wolves this winter.”

Nick blinked as the countertop vibrated with the grinding as Maggie worked the hand crank and poked cubes of meat and seasoning down into the wide mouth of the grinder. He smiled and spread his hand on the counter, feeling the rumble and vibration, his version of hearing and Maggie looked up at him a little surprised, as though she’d forgotten he was there entirely. “You feel that?” Nick nodded. “Have I been talking this whole time out loud?” Nick laughed silently and shrugged. He covered his ears and shook his head. “No, I guess you wouldn’t know, would you?”

She experimented for a moment, mouthing the words rather than vocalizing, “Does this look any different to you?” Nick’s brow furrowed in concentration, her words suddenly harder to piece together, the dance of tongue and teeth muffled, and a little disjointed, as though she were mumbling. He shrugged. “I was mouthing the words- just- curious if it looked different from talking out loud.” She waved a hand dismissively and picked up a large kettle- the one she’d used to boil potatoes the night before, and handed it to Nick, “Fill that with water from the side of the stove, would you? And put it on a back burner.”

Nick nodded and did as he was asked, coming back to perch on a stool, facing her again. He wrote briefly, _I want you to know that I didn’t just apologize so that you would help with wells up in Boulder. I appreciate that, but I __am__ sorry for what I said. I don’t think you would do anything to hurt anyone._ _That wasn’t a bullshit apology._ Once again, he wished he could speak, feeling somehow that being able to hear the sincerity in his voice would mean more than simply seeing the words written down.

Maggie sighed and read his words, then nodded slowly. “Yeah, okay Nick. I know. Apology accepted.” She shrugged and didn’t look back up at him for a long time. Her hands worked in the bowl, mushing the ground meat into submission. “Can you get me a couple of eggs from the refrigerator?” Nick nodded, delighting a little once more at the ready coolness of the appliance. At one point, it had been the easiest thing in the world, to pop food in and always have it fresh and ready. He saw it stocked with vegetables- carrots, peas in the pod, and a head of late-summer lettuce, with a small plastic box of tomatoes on one of the wire grates, and he salivated in spite of himself. Nearly everything he’d been eating had come from a can, and fresh vegetables were nonexistent in Boulder. And after several months even tomato soup and Chef Boyardee got old. Everything in the grocery stores had rotted once the electricity cut out, or been eaten by deer. He stepped closer around her and held up two eggs and she nodded, “Crack them into the bowl please.” He did so and smiled, then turned with the eggshells in his hands, not sure what to do with them. “Pail under the sink, the one that says ‘Pigs’ on it.”

When he pushed aside the curtain below the sink, Nick nodded, seeing two pails, one marked ‘Pigs,’ containing meat scraps, and a leftover biscuit, and another marked ‘Chix,’ containing mostly plant matter and another leftover biscuit. He turned back to her and tapped a finger against his forehead, smart.

“Mmhm. They have to eat too. I have feed set aside for them for now, but that helps to stretch it.” Maggie offered him a slanted smile and shrugged, mushing together eggs and beef and spices, starting to form mass into two inch balls. “Uhm- in the side cabinet-” She indicated with her head and Nick reached up, looking over his shoulder at her, “Lower cabinet- no- other side of the sink- warmer- warmer- warmerwarmerwarmer-hot! Right there-” Nick laughed silently as he moved his hand along the lower tier of cabinetry until she nodded, then pulled out a large cooking sheet and put it where she could reach it. The meatballs quickly began to populate the cookie sheet and Nick smiled, rubbed his stomach with his hand eagerly. “Well they’re still raw- Jeez. How many do you think you can eat?”

Nick grinned and held up three fingers, then four. “And maybe some of your own hand too, apparently. Okay, four-” She rolled out a dozen meatballs. “If there’s some left, they can be lunch tomorrow, for us or the piggies.” Nick frowned and wrote,  _ Isn’t that kind of like- barnyard cannibalism? _

“They don’t know what it is. Pigs will eat meat, if they can get it in the wild, small animals and things, or eggs on the ground.These ones will eat just about anything I give them. The only thing they’re not wild about is hay- thank God.I don’t have to share it out with them on top of everything elses.” Nick smiled and shrugged, turned to watch her as she slid meatballs into the wood oven and added another stick of wood.

He could see a more practical reason for shorts and a tee in the house- the cookstove gave off a powerful amount of heat when it was running at cooking capacity. In the winter, it would be more than enough to heat the small house comfortably. He flapped the neck of the tee a little when Maggie turned around. “Yeah- it gets warm. No way around that- unless you want to sit outside.” She stood a little awkwardly in the middle of the living room, shifted her weight from one bare foot to the other and shrugged. “Do you?”

Nick nodded and crossed the living room. He opened the front door bowed forward, gesturing for her to go ahead of him. “Oh, gee thanks.” Maggie smiled in spite of her sarcastic tone and stepped outside with a mimed curtsey. She stood on the wide plank steps, looking out at the long dirt drive and the solar lights starting to flicker to life, leading out toward the main road, Colorado route fourteen. The sun cast long shadows across the yard, stretching out the images of fenceposts and Maggie’s sign into grotesque fingers that clutched at the brownish grass.

Nick took a seat next to her and noted that it was much cooler out here, starting to get downright chilly with the sunlight fading. The summer evenings were always a little chilly, but cooler weather was on the way, and quickly. He began to understand more concretely Maggie’s anxieties about storing food and fuel for winter. He looked at her in the golden glow of sunset and felt his heart clutch a little. When she was haranguing him or yelling at him, or arguing with Glen, her eyes narrowed with suspicion at Stu, she seemed plain, her nose and chin rather sharp. Quiet and thoughtful like this, still dusty around the ears, even after her dunking in the creek, he thought she was almost beautiful.

Maggie rubbed her arms lightly and looked back at Nick, seeing him watching her. “Thanks for your help today. It- made things go much faster.” She pursed her lips in a faint grin and looked out at the field that stretched out toward the road, and the land beyond it. “Even if that wood pile is sort of crooked-”

Nick gaped and nudged her with his elbow, writing quickly, _It is __not._ Her grey eyes twinkled a little and Nick rolled his eyes at her in mock annoyance. They sat quietly together, in a silence that wasn’t uncomfortable for either of them. The shadows lengthened slowly, beginning to fade together in the waning light and Nick thought again of the way her shirt had clung to her in the creek and swallowed, feeling his pulse speed a little. He studied Maggie’s profile, about to put pen to paper when she stood up, his eyes following her. He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“Laundry,” she said and headed inside and Nick followed. He pointed to his chest, to the bucket near the hose nozzle near the sink and raised his eyebrows. “Yes, if you could run some more water, and fill the tank by the stove, that would be great.” It was her turn to watch him, filling the bucket and pouring water into the five gallon water heater to one side of the cookstove. 

From the closet in her bedroom, Maggie carried out a large cardboard box of detergent, the kind generally used for washing cloth diapers and baby clothes, the bright gold top and sides emblazoned with proclamations of “BIODEGRADABLE” and “PHOSPHATE-FREE” and “SAFE FOR ALL COLORS” in large purple letters. A stack of the boxes, most of the contents of two pallets occupied one corner of her bedroom closet. While some a number of the books in her library included instructions on making soaps and other natural cleaners, including  _ Easy Soap Making  _ and  _ Making Candles & Soaps for Dummies, _ the process was a little more than she wanted to take on this late in the season. Something better left for the long winter months, when she would be stuck indoors for long hours at a time and would need something to occupy her days.

She tugged at the handle of the washtub, sliding it across the wooden floor on a throw rug, minimizing splashes. Nick watched with interest as she pulled the tub out onto the front porch and leaned a scrub board into the bucket. Sprinkling in a little detergent, she began lifting clothes out, working them against the ridges of the board. Nick came back out and sat across from her, watching the process, her hands and arms thick with suds. He reached into to help and came up with her underwear in his hands, and blushed furiously. 

She smiled wryly and arched an eyebrow at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a girl’s underwear before-”

Nick pursed his lips a little and rolled his eyes. He wiped his hand off on the t-shirt and reached for the notepad.  _ I wasn’t washing them at the time. _

Maggie snorted and shook her head, a grin tugging at her mouth. “You need to keep at least one hand dry to write anyway. I can do this Nick, it’s okay. I’m used to doing for myself.” He shrugged and watched the clothes swirl in the water, biting his lip a little. He knew how that could be. He’d been doing for himself his whole life. 


	12. Smoke Signals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick gives in to attraction, and both loners find company in each other.

Dinner was marinara made with fresh tomatoes to compliment the meatballs and pasta, and fresh greens from the garden. Nick ate hugely of everything, forgoing his pad completely at times to give the meal his full attention. Maggie disappeared to take a quick shower, and finish rinsing dust and mud and grime from her skin. Nick took his turn, changing back into the shorts and tee she’d loaned him and they both made themselves comfortable in the warmth of the living room by the stove, listening to the soft patter of water dripping from their cleaned clothes, steam rising courtesy the fire in the stove. Maggie had her feet up on a cushion, her eyes closed, hands folded on top of her head and Nick wasn’t sure if she was awake still, or had fallen asleep sitting up. After her shower she’d changed into a pair of shorts and a long tee shirt, and he eyed her outstretched bare legs somewhat longingly, wondering again if those feathers went all the way up.

As he looked on, Maggie opened one eye slightly, saw him watching her, and peered back at him, eyebrows raised. “Hey.” Her leg swung to the side, tapping his shin lightly and his head jerked up to her face, although not before he had time to wonder if she was completely bare under the loose fitting tee and shorts. Nick raised his eyebrows in silent questioning toward her. “I think tomorrow I want to run fence, along the eastern side of the pasture, to give the alpacas more room. I have a post hole digger, and plenty of posts. If there’s time, maybe we can head south to the Home Depot, and farm stores in Denver. I have a list, and maybe we should get you a change of clothes too.” Nick shrugged and looked down at the borrowed clothing, then nodded.

He wrote,  _ Especially if I’m here for one more night. Dry clothes of my own would be good to change into. _ Maggie nodded and passed the book back to him, closing her eyes and putting her hands behind her head again. “Okay. It would be a good time to get some larger watering tanks for the animals, those are heavy. How’s your leg feel after running around on it, chasing me like an asshole today?”

Nick rolled his eyes at her and made a quacking motion with one hand.  _ Blah blah blah.  _ He then turned his calf toward her and peeled back the bandage. There was a slightly grubby square around the cleaner area, but the bleeding had stopped some time ago, and it looked like it would heal up fine. He held up a thumb and forefinger circle.

“Look like you’ll have a full recovery. You were lucky. Running out into a field  _ toward _ a pack of wolves was- pretty fucking stupid.” Maggie smiled wryly and lifted her eyebrows toward Nick, “Of course, I guess you  _ are _ a politician’ now, so I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised. Your kind aren’t exactly known for common sense-” Nick cheerfully gave her the finger and swatted at her with the notepad. Maggie laughed and her face split into one of her rare illuminating grins. “How come you don’t have like- a whistle or something? You could have used that with a walkie talkie to call for help. Morse Code, S.O.S or something like that?”

Nick looked back at her blankly, lips slightly parted, doing a fair impression of Tom Cullen’s far off daze. The he groaned silently and whapped a hand against his forehead. He wrote slowly, shaking his head at his own idiocy.  _ I don’t know why. That’s a damned good idea. _

“Mm, that’s me. I’m a problem solver.” She smiled and shrugged, pleased with his comment nonetheless, and it showed on her face. Nick took a moment to look around at the small house, comfortably lit with her myriad light sources, the hose and nozzle hooked just inside the kitchen window, the extension cords from the solar generators outside powering the comforting white boxes of the freezer and refrigerator. Faced with the challenges of a world that had fallen apart, Maggie had assessed her needs and assembled a comfortable life for herself, from the ground up. It had all the comforts of most homes, really, more than Mother Abagail’s had had even, with water that ran right into the house via hoses. 

Nick picked up the pad and wrote, thoughtfully,  _ You like it here, don’t you?  _ There was more to it than that, he suspected she also liked the obstacle course of survival they were all put into with the roads blocked, and the electricity out all over the country. He thought of the lights going out in Shoyo, and the nameless dread that had stolen into his heart at the feel of dead power boxes. He wondered what Maggie had experienced when power went out in her section of the world. If it had been dread- or exhilaration. 

Maggie read his note and shrugged, tipped her head from one side to the other. “I do now, I guess. I think- I’ve been trying not to think too much about- everything. Just put one foot in front of the other, one day at a time, like they say in AA.” Nick looked at her quizzically and she smiled, “Uncle in ‘the program.’ One day at a time.” She nodded and rubbed at the bridge of her nose and Nick saw her chest rise and fall in a sigh. “To be honest, I don’t  _ want  _ to think about it all too much. Out here, I guess I feel like it’s okay to be alone. Places like this out in the country always feel sort of- solitary, you know?” He did, he’d been in a fair number of them while wandering. “Seeing other ‘survivors’ and all the empty streets- it kind of freaks me out. It just reminds me that it’s  _ all  _ like that now. The whole country, the whole- world. Not just here, but everywhere. Tokyo is empty- Paris is empty- Haiti is empty I’m sure- all those people. Just- gone. All that’s left are these- tiny pockets of survivors.”

Nick swallowed and nodded slowly. There were areas in Boulder that were still shockingly empty, places where the burial crews hadn’t gotten to yet, where the houses were still tombs, the streets still blocked with the vehicles of the dead. As he watched, Maggie tucked her legs up in front of her, wrapping her arms around her knees like a small child. “If I’m alone all the time- I don’t feel as alone. Because it’s just- how things are. It doesn’t feel like the world is as empty as it is because I’m used to it.” She exhaled and lifted her chin, “But- as Nietzche said, ‘you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.’”

Nick nodded and wrote ‘Wyrd’ on the notepad, and Maggie glanced at it, then nodded. “It’s a helluva wyrd to be on right now.”

_It’s you Nick. God has put his finger on your heart._ Nick sighed and looked into the middle distance, his gaze semi vacant as Mother Abagail’s words circled through his mind in their silent way, the shapes of her lips repeating in his thoughts. _Sometimes I feel nostalgic for the time right after the plague, when I was still on my own. It was scary and lonely, but sometimes I think having other people looking to me like a leader is even scarier._ _I can’t talk, how am I supposed to give orders?_

Maggie read this and looked back at Nick, seeing him more clearly for a moment. He was young, younger than she was. She thought about how much older he seemed than Fran, who had to be nearly his age. Maggie scrunched her lips a little and reached toward him, resting her hand on his cheek lightly. His warm dark eyes met hers and she smiled softly. A gentle glint appeared in her eyes. It was there for only a moment before turning just slightly wicked. 

“Smoke signals?”

Nick groaned silently and then smiled, wrote:  _ Are you making fun of me? _

“A little.” Maggie laughed and surprised both of them when she leaned over and kissed Nick’s cheek slightly when his head turned to write something on his notepad. Nick sat up, and turned to face her, color rising to his face in a flood. Maggie shuffled awkwardly in her seat and chewed her lower lip.Feeling suddenly uncomfortable, Nick wasn’t responding in any way other to blush furiously-  _ Shit, maybe he’s gay- _ she clapped her hands on her knees and stood up. “Hey, I want to try something- sit right there-”

Nick’s gaze followed her as she almost ran from the room and he exhaled hard, running his fingers through his hair. She’d kissed him- on the cheek- but still. He’d almost forgotten the simple pleasure of human contact like that in all this- establishing a society business. He guessed that was why Fran and Stu, and Larry and Lucy, Ralph and Elise had paired up. Sometimes there was nothing like a kiss to make a body feel- alive. Nick grinned down at the note pad and tapped it with his pen, heart thudding in his ears. He looked up curiously when Maggie came back, carrying a drum about two feet high. She nudged out a footstool and set the drum in front of it. 

“Okay, sit- on the floor or on the footstool would be better so that you can-” She waited for him to move, and he looked at her curiously until she took his hands and put them on either side of the drum. She picked up a couple of padded sticks and tapped lightly at the drum, watching Nick’s face. “Can you feel that?” Nick rested his palms against the sides and felt the instrument vibrate through his palms, making his palms tingle. His eyes widened a little as he watched Maggie’s face and nodded happily. She beat the drum, beginning slowly, working in a syncopated rhythm that to Nick felt like thudding heartbeats. As she increased the speed, his own heartbeat sped a little in kind.

He saw her lips forming words that were unfamiliar to him and he cocked his head to the side. They seemed to fit the rhythm she was making, the pulsing heartbeat of the drum under his hands. Unable to understand her, he closed his eyes, losing himself in the thudding beat under his palms. He inhaled softly, tingling running through his fingers and up his arms, seeming to vibrate around his very core. When the vibration ceased after several minutes, he blinked slowly, nerves in his hands and arms still thrumming. Maggie was beaming at him, watching Nick sit, stunned, his hands slowly falling from the sides of the drum. He reached for the notepad and wrote,  _ What was that? _

“Other than a drum?” Nick rolled his eyes, “Sometimes I play, when I’m by myself. It- makes me feel better. That’s a Haitian Djouba Rhythm. It’s- a prayer, kind of. To the spirit- the Lma- of the earth magic and farming. Kouzin Azaka.” Maggie half smiled and shrugged, and plucked the pen lightly from Nick’s hand, first writing the words out for him, then the phonetic spelling, and translation. Nick read the words, blinking, then grinned. “You play.”

_ I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff?  _ Nick wrote, resting his words on top of the drum. 

“I believe in nature, I can see- touch- feel- that. Nature is everywhere. Things have spirits, can’t you feel that?” She smiled and kneeled across from him, tapped the drum. Nick paused, then nodded slowly. “I may not believe in the laws of man, but I believe in the laws of nature. The Leavers and the Takers.” 

Nick shrugged and copied her rhythm, steady and thrumming. He’d never played an instrument before. No one had ever handed him one. Probably assuming that it would be meaningless to him, although he sensed the vibrations of sound much more keenly, and with the same parts of his brain with which others understood sound. Maggie rewarded him with a grin and stood, repeating the chant, feet stamping on the ground, helping Nick keep time, hips swaying. And Nick had that thought again,  _ That’s what music looks like, _ as he watched her, seeing her lips wrapping around the unfamiliar words. It all seemed part of an elaborate ritual, a full-body expression of prayer and joy, her face slowly spreading into a peaceful delighted grin.

Nick stood, letting the drum fall to the floor with a hollow rattling thud. Slowly, Maggie stopped moving, hands dropping to her sides. She felt a little as if she’d been caught doing something inappropriate, private. One of her hands tugged at her earlobe and she blushed and looked away from him. “Well- anyway- that’s just something that I learned- ah, in Haiti and when I was-” She turned toward Nick when he put a hand on her mouth, cutting off the flow of her words, her eyebrows bunched in curiosity. When he lifted his hand he replaced it with his lips, his hands grasping her shoulders firmly. 

“Nick-” Maggie’s heart pounded in her chest, looking up at his dark eyes, seeing them full of want and heat. And then his lips were on hers again and her eyes fell closed, giving a little to the intent pressure of his mouth.

Part of him wanted to take things slowly, patiently, to take his time and explore. Julie had been-  _ A big fucking mistake- _ too fast. And too long ago, what was he- made of stone?  _ Well- _ He slid his hands from Maggie’s shoulders to her hips and pulled her toward him, and when his lips passed down her throat he felt the slight vibration of her moan. He gasped for air, looking back at her eyes, seeing them wide and sparkling, reminding him of the ocean just before dawn, when he’d been at the coast of the Carolinas a few years back. Nick nodded toward the three doors behind them, his hands remaining firmly on her hips. Maggie looked over her shoulder toward her bedroom and he buried his face against her neck, breathing in her clean, sweet smell, tasting her with his lips and tongue.

“Jesus Nick-” She panted and folded an arm around his shoulder and took a few steps backward in the direction of her bedroom. Nick took her lead and pushed open the door, a cooler rush of air from the bedroom hitting his skin. In front of the stove, in light of her dancing his temperature had risen until he was nearly sweating. There had been women he’d wanted in Boulder, of course. He really  _ wasn’t  _ made of stone, and he was young, not old and disillusioned with humanity like Glen Bateman. But he’d felt tied to his responsibilities with the committee, with protecting everyone in Boulder from something even he didn’t understand, and that muddied any attraction he’d felt and made it impossible to know if their attraction was to him, or to the power of the committee. Such as it was. People there had a tendency to look at him either as something of a pitiable oddity- which he was used to- or as if he were Moses in the desert- which he wasn’t. Out here he felt clear and free. 

And then there was Maggie, with her bright grey eyes, who didn’t really need him in any way, other than as a spear carrier, an extra set of hands. It was liberating to have her look back at him, and not ask about the power, or the burial committee, or with the unseen question about the Dark Man and what to do about him in her eyes. As he walked her backward toward the bed- she really wasn’t wearing anything under the tee shirt he was delighted to discover- he let himself want her fully.

Stretched out on the bed, she leaned for the little battery powered Coleman lantern on the nightstand and her face twisted pleasurably when Nick bent to suckle a nipple between his lips. “Nick-” He looked up at her when the pace of her breath changed and offered a lopsided smile, pulling the tee up and off over his head, mussing his dark hair. She pressed a hand against his chest, simply looking at him for a moment, heart thudding crazily as she took in the flat panes of muscle across his chest and shoulders. He’d been on short rations before the flu, but not since coming to Boulder. Even if the food was canned and preserved, there was plenty of it, and Nick realized he had filled out some from the skinny kid he’d been before. He saw her looking him over and curled an arm, flexing lightly and she laughed, putting a hand to his cheek, pushing his head to the side.

He grinned happily and kissed her again, softly at first, but with growing intensity until he was nearly devouring her mouth and pressing his hips against hers hard. “Ahh- Nick-” Her fingers clutched at his back and Maggie panted, tugging at the drawstring of his shorts, pushing them from his hips. In the dim light of her room, she nodded quickly when he looked to her face, his hands pausing for a bare instant before sliding under her own thin cotton shorts. The feathers, he saw, did go all the way up. All the way up to her hip where the last one broke apart into little stars, black and green stars, black and white stars, black and purple, black and red, fanning out across her hip. Nick stroked his fingers over the smooth colored skin, his hips pressed tightly to hers, grinding intently. “More-” Her head tipped backward, dark hair fanning against her pillows and then he was inside her, hot and hard and urgent “Ohfuck- Nick-”

Nick moaned silently as she squeezed around him and gripped her hips, pulled her up hard against him, feeling her give to him. He panted, his palms spreading up her chest, cupping her breasts, and he kissed her hard as he pressed into her deeply and felt her whole body shudder with the motion. Rudy telling him God gave all deaf-mute males an extra two inches below the waist flitted through his mind and he smiled against her neck, his lips working down to play across her chest again. Nick was good with the tangible, things he could touch and taste and see, and he drank in every quick rise and fall of Maggie’s chest, every shift and move of the curves of her body, and the quickening buck and arch of her hips with his whole body, not needing to see her face to know she was panting his name into the air. He felt the short staccato exhale and occlusive halt of breath that he associated with the shape of his name.

“Nick, Nick, Nick,  _ Nick- _ ” Maggie dug her fingers into his back, her free hand gripping the cool metal of her headboard, providing counterpoint to the heat of his body over and inside her. His hands were so  _ good. _ Strong and sweet and rough and gentle all at the same time, pulling and pressing and matching the pace of his lips and his hips, and she had time to think briefly-  _ Does he know I’m saying his name? _ and then she was  _ there _ , peaking and arching and clenching around him, pulling him deeper. She felt heat spread inside her, sweat pasting their bodies together and she cried out loudly, tension pulling every muscle in her body taut. Somewhere outside a handful of alpacas lifted their shaggy camel-like heads, chewing, and looked toward the house with interest. A confused rooster crowed and stirred up a flurry of hens brooding and clucking in the henhouse, feathers ruffling for a moment before they ducked their heads under their wings once more.

Back in the cabin, Maggie cupped her hands over her face and laughed loudly, sound seeming to burble up from the tips of her toes. Nick reached for her wrist and tugged her hand from her face to see her mouth and she simply shook her head and grinned. “God _ damn. _ ” Nick answered her grin with one of his own and slowly traced his hand down the lazy curve of her side and kissed her neck. He touched her hip with one finger, and made a show of pulling his hand back as if burned by a hot stove, shaking his finger.

“Oh I bet that’s what you tell all the girls.” Her tone was dry but the smile remained perched on her lips. Nick shrugged and moved to lie next to her, one arm resting around her waist. “You know, I was going to make you sleep on the couch.” He made an exaggerated distraught face, the corners of his mouth dragging down. The pantomime didn’t last long, he felt too good to even mock sadness. The hand on her stomach spread upward, his fingertips toying with the rosy peak of her nipple slowly, tugging a little until she inhaled sharply, her back arching. “Nnhh- I really was.” Maggie forced one eye open to look back at him and Nick nodded slowly and bit his lip, twisting a little and her face twisted in pleasurable response. “You’re not  _ that _ cute.” He gave her an exaggerated nod and a thumb and forefinger circle with his free hand and she kicked him hard, pushing him off the bed with her leg, his mouth a round “o” of surprise.

He pulled himself back up and over her, pinning her back with a firm grip on either wrist, and stuck his tongue out at her. When she stopped wiggling, after some moments, he leaned down to kiss her intently. This time he resolved to go slowly, and it was well into the night before they fell into contented and satiated sleep. 


	13. Patches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> September first, rain in the morning forecast.

September first dawned chilly, with the scent of rain in the air. A rooster crowed out in the yard.

Maggie sat up in the dim light, cold sweat chilling her skin, the vision of the inferno fresh in her mind, shrapnel bursting through three glass front wall, and was that- a couch? She shuddered violently, goose bumps spreading over her skin. Slowly the reality of her bedroom filtered in over the memory of the dream and she scrubbed her hands over her face, feeling not just terror, but nausea, grief. For a moment she thought she might throw up in her lap and fought back the urge.

Dazedly, feeling movement next to him, Nick opened his eyes. For a moment he couldn't place his surroundings, knotty pine plank walls, blue curtains, an open window letting the morning breeze in. Homier than his rooms back at the house he shared with Ralph. Then he turned, saw Maggie sitting up next to him and remembered the previous night. She looked troubled, her face twisted with some unknown worry. Nick propped himself up on his elbow and touched her arm lightly and she started- her eyes wide. For a moment Nick wasn’t even sure if she saw him, or if she was still lost somewhere off in thought.

“Oh-- Nick-” She blinked rapidly and took a slow steadying breath.  _ Screaming, a rose of fire like the mouth of Hell, body parts strewn and cruelly illuminated. _ Maggie shuddered and unbidden, a solitary tear streaked her cheek. Nick caught it with a finger and sat up more fully, pointed to her, made a thumb and forefinger circle, tilted his head questioningly.  _ Are you ok?  _ With his notepad forgotten in the other room, he was reduced to pantomime again. Incommunicado.

Maggie nodded and scrubbed the last of sleep from her face with her palms, letting out a shuddery sigh. He sat up and motioned to her, put an arm around her shoulder and hugged her tightly. Initially, she pulled back slightly, unwilling to be comforted but he didn’t let go and after a moment she let her dark head rest against his shoulder. He lifted her chin in his hand, drew a question mark in the air, wanting to know what was wrong. She had nodded, and he gathered she’d understood him, but he didn’t think she was okay. Her whole posture said she wasn’t okay.

“Dream.” She shook her head violently and rubbed her hands over her bare arms and Nick saw she was broken out in gooseflesh. “Just- a dream.” He cocked his head to the side and frowned a little, wishing he could just- ask her to explain. He drew a question mark in the air again, his other arm wrapped around her shoulder. “I told Fran about it. A dream about- a house on fire. There was an explosion or something, and people screaming, bodies-” Her body convulsed and Nick wrapped both arms around her again, leaning his head against hers. “It- feels like one of the dreams about- the Other, but different. Jesus it felt so real-” He held her for a moment, as long as she would let him, until she patted his chest. “I’m okay. Just a dream.” He nodded, not convinced that she was, but then she was standing, crossing the room naked and Nick felt himself stir, wanting her again, with pale dawn light painting her skin. She closed the window, cutting down on the chill in the air. “That’s better-”

Nick nodded and stood. He wrapped his arms around her waist, kissed her gently. There was a smell of rain in the air, chilly and damp. Nick held up one finger and went to retrieve his notepad from the living room. Able to express himself again, he wrote,  _ I don’t think today is going to be very good for running fence. It’s going to rain. _ She read his note, sitting on the edge of the bed with one leg folded up underneath her, frowned a little. Nick sat next to her.

“Well- it’s going to rain, but maybe not hard. It rains almost every day-” Maggie began to protest and stood again, pulled a flannel button down shirt around her shoulders. Still more interested in the bare stretch of her skin, Nick shook his head and brought his hands to her waist. A few drops of rain pattered against the window pane quietly, as if to confirm what Nick had said about the weather. "Nick- it's light out." She protested, but her eyes slipped closed when his mouth found her breast through the open front of her shirt.

_ The cows are going to want milking- the sun is on it's way up .  _ Lowly, she groaned when Nick tugged her gently forward onto the bed again. He might not have a way with words, but she was beginning to find his hands could be persuasive enough on their own.

Nick reveled some in the sweet pressure of her thighs around his hips, the curves of her body and the sharp rise and fall of her chest as she panted against the cool morning air. Before the flu, he'd been too busy wandering to have anything like a girlfriend. Most sexual encounters he'd had had been one shot affairs, just before moving on to a new place. As he thought of it, he wasn't sure he had one now. Tomorrow would be the meeting, and then- who knew? 

By the time Maggie and Nick emerged from the bedroom the sun was as high as it was going to get, forming a slightly brighter spot in the sky behind the cloud cover. From the chill in the room she suspected the fire was out and looked at Nick with annoyance. Although it wasn't his fault really, she'd let him distract her, even while knowing that the cows needed milking and were probably uncomfortable and all the animals needed food and water. Her lips tightened a little and she stood with her hands on her hips in the living room, trying to decide which matter was most pressing.  _ Goddamnit all- _ She ran her fingers through her hair, tugging a little in frustration. Yesterday he’d been a help- today her schedule was all thrown off. She added ‘Throwing off the chore schedule’ to her mental list of reasons to remain unattached out here.

Nick stood behind her and put a hand on her shoulder, turning her around. She swatted a hand at him idly and pointed to the stove. "See if the fire is out- you can build a fire, right?"

Nick nodded, a little puzzled. She seemed irritated, her shoulders set against him. He thought they'd had a good time. He certainly had. He pulled his clothes from the drying rack and slipped into them, buttoning his shirt. After a brief check, Nick determined that the fire was indeed out, and searched out a handful of matches and some tinder to relight it. By the time he'd coaxed the fire to smoky hesitant life, Maggie had disappeared from the house.

_ What the hell changed?  _ He looked in the direction of the door to the yard, unsure if she would still welcome his assistance. She'd been glad enough for it yesterday, but now? She’d brushed him off as if he were an irritating fly. He found himself at a loss with her. One minute she was warmly wrapped around him, laughing with delight- the next closed off and annoyed. And then there was her strange mood this morning. Obviously her dream had affected her, but she didn’t seem willing to talk about it. 

After Maggie had caught up adequately on her chores, as much as she was going to- the rain was coming down harder now, she slogged into the house, stopping at the stoop to take off her boots. The slicker helped her top half- her jeans were wet through, pasted to her skin. Nick looked back at her from the stove when she came in. She bore a striking resemblance to a drowned rat he thought ruefully.

He wasn’t much of a cook, his mother had cooked for him until she died, and at the orphanage, it hadn’t been an issue. Since, he’d had to tend to himself and most meals were catch-as-catch can. He’d tried though, finding eggs in the fridge, and a loaf of dense homemade bread in a box on the counter. At least the kitchen was well organized, thank God for small favors. A dry goods cabinet produced an enormous jug of thick maple syrup. Maneuvering around the stove had been a challenge- the whole surface was hot to the touch, and he’d burnt the side of his hand once when he discovered that fact. He had alternated between nursing his burn and dunking bread in a thick egg mixture, assembling a plate of French toast. The last piece was in the pan, starting to give off a scorched smell and Nick turned back to it quickly and pulled the pan off quickly, handle wrapped in a towel.

Maggie had been ready to come in and chew Nick out- for making her late this morning, letting the fire go out, being a distraction rather than a help- like he’d said he would be. Distracting was the opposite of help. Plus it was working up to a steady rain outside, and by the time she’d finished milking and mucking out stalls she was filthy, wet and bedraggled and ready to bite. She huffed, fighting her way out of the rain slicker, hungry and thoroughly pissed off.  _ He could have at least come out to help instead of just hiding inside where it’s dry and I swear if he doesn’t have the stove lit - _

When she looked up, and saw Nick standing with his hand wrapped in a towel, and a lopsided pile of toasted bread slices sitting on the counter, her anger melted away like fog dissolving under bright sunlight. Nick wrote, keeping his burn off the countertop carefully,  _ I’m not much of a cook. Sorry about that.  _ Maggie sighed and pushed a soggy lock of hair away from her face and looked back him and put an arm around his neck, kissed his cheek.

“Thanks for trying, I’m sure it’s fine.” She sat down, covered two slices in syrup and dug in. The toast was fine, rich and soft and warm and good. “This is good, Nick. You shouldn’t downplay yourself-”

He smiled and sat next to her with his own plate and she frowned. He was holding his fork funny. “What did you do to yourself?”

_ The stove is hot all over, I discovered. _

“Oh hell. Did you find the first aid kit?” He shook his head. She stood and he did as well until she waved him off. “No, stay there.” She disappeared into the bedroom and emerged with a box, rifled through it and produced a tube of burn cream. “Here-”

He smiled ruefully and let her rub cream onto the reddened patch on his hand.  _ Thank you for patching me up. Again. _ He paused and tapped his pen against the pad, feeling the silence heavily for a moment.  _ I don’t know what happened this morning. Are you angry with me? _

Maggie read and sighed. “Yes- no- I don’t know.” Feeling better with food in her stomach, less likely to bite him out of spite she turned to face Nick a little more fully. “You said you would stay here to help-” He nodded, “-and today I got started so late- it’s almost noon and I just finished milking, and you’re right, it’s too damned wet to dig fence posts- and- I hate waking up to unpleasant dreams and-” She exhaled a slow breath and drug her hands down her face, the nails still grimy around the edges. “-and I’m just very frustrated. And you being her- kind of freaks me out.”

Nick drew a question mark in the air and frowned.

“ _ Because. _ I can take care of myself just fine out here, and having another person around is- another person. It’s slower, to figure out who’s doing what.” She shrugged and pursed her lips and kicked at the base of the kitchen island. “And- it’s just much more complicated.” 

Thinking of traveling with Tom, Nick nodded. He’d missed other people desperately, but when they had turned him into a leader, he felt uncomfortable. That was part of what he liked about Maggie’s farm, he didn’t have to lead, he could be- a spear carrier, and take orders. He guessed that’s why Ralph had been reluctant to join the committee in the first place.  _ Would you rather I went home today? I can, if you’ll give me a ride. _

“No- I mean- if you want to, I can drive you on my way down to Denver.” She didn’t want him to go. Even though it was something of a pain in the ass- chores delayed, routine all fucked up, it was nice having him here. And when he looked at her with his dark expressive eyes, it made something inside her soften, turn to goo. And then his hands, and how he used them, not to mention-

She colored a little, barely visible under her muddy cheeks. “I’d rather you stayed though. I sort of- planned for that. And I could use a hand down in Denver- hauling feed and a bigger water tank, if I can find one.” Maggie tugged at her earlobe and Nick thought there might be more to what she felt than just- wanting a hand but he shrugged and nodded. He knew better than to press. 

_ If that’s what you want. I’d like to stay too. _ He smiled and took her hand with his good one and kissed her softly, letting his mouth soften against hers. 

_ You scare me Nick. Because I think I could like you, and I don’t know what to make of that. _ She thought, as she rested a hand on his thigh and leaned in to his lips slowly. 


	14. Rational Society

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The arguments against a rational society.

They headed out after Maggie had a chance to shower off the last of her morning sojourn into the field and change into some dry clothes. Their trip to Denver was as successful as Maggie could have hoped. The most packed areas of the roads were on the main through fares, and they kept to farm roads wherever possible, sometimes heading through muddy fields in the four wheel drive truck while Nick held onto the ‘oh shit’ bar tightly, his knuckles white. At one point, he had put a firm hand on Maggie’s thigh and squeezed as the truck bounced down one ditch and up onto the road again when she swung them around a blockage that was almost total.

“Would you stop? It’s fine- Jesus-” She had rolled her eyes at his anxiety, the truck rolling smoothly along the highway at a brisk 80 miles per hour until an overturned SUV threw them off course again. Nick had let go of her thigh, squeezing tighter to the handle above the door when she took them through another field, jarring them both until their teeth rattled.

In Denver, she sought out second hand stores, and antique shops, and found some glass hurricane lanterns at one and a wooden loom at the other. He couldn’t fathom where the hell she was going to put  _ that _ and they’d argued about it for a while- him writing, her barking back at him- until she had given up and started attempting to hoist the thing onto a dolly from the back of the antique store on her own. He’d sworn to let her drag it herself and throw her back out if she really wanted to. He’d just been trying to  _ help _ for God’s sake, wasn’t that what he was here for? Maggie had ignored him, and eventually Nick had given in and helped her push it up into the bed of her truck, thoughts about what a real pain in the ass she could be roiling around in the back of his mind.

She redeemed herself later when she left him looking over emergency flashlights, the kind you shake for a few minutes to generate light, and returned with a box containing dozens of notepads in all sizes, from legal sized for notes to small and pocket portable scratch pads, and pens, the nice ones that didn’t bleed or fade, even when wet. For that, Nick had kissed her soundly, cupping her face between his hands.

“Do you all- dress up for these meetings or anything? I mean- how professional do I have to look?” Maggie looked back at Nick dubiously from women’s section of an outdoor clothing supplier. Her arms were piled with thick down jackets and vests, padded overalls and snow pants. She reached for a handful of sport bras and underwear, all ordinarily $35 and up-  _ Now for the low low price of ‘whatever you can carry’ _ she thought. Nick shrugged.  _ I don’t think anyone really pays much attention to that.  _ He’d picked up a couple of shirts, and jeans, with a package of underwear and socks. He had half a mind to simply leave these things at Maggie’s, if she had the space. He seemed to end up needing a change of clothes whenever he was at her place.

She twisted her mouth to the side and stuffed the winter clothing into a couple of bags. At another shop she picked up a pair of simple black pants, and a black knee-length skirt, with a few more ‘civilized’ tops to go with. Nick sat outside the shop in the deserted mall, bored.  _ What on earth is so damned important about clothes?  _ He wondered, and shook his head. For all her cursing and slogging through the mud this morning, she was sure being a  _ girl _ about this meeting. He wanted to tell her that she would make a fine impression so long as she didn’t bite anyone’s head off, no matter what she wore. He started slightly when he felt something soft hit his shoulder and picked it up, a t-shirt, bound up for display with a paper taped around it. He looked in the direction it had come from to see Maggie peeking out from behind a dressing room door.  _ Oh Christ, what now? _

He stood up, already writing halfway over to her,  _ Are you about done yet? It really doesn~~ _ his handwriting trailed off jaggedly when he looked up and saw her with her hand on one hip, dressed in a filmy bra, panties and nothing else. “How about this?” Nick grinned, crossed out what he’d started to write, continued,  _ I think it might be a little much for the meeting. _

She laughed and blushed, color rising hotly to her cheeks and her upper chest. “Hey man- I was trying to be cute.” She folded her arms across her chest, feeling much more naked if he wasn’t going to play along.

_ It’s cute. Take it off. _ Nick wrote and reached toward her, and his fingers caught the brief fabric of her underwear. He kissed her and cupped her breast, kneading firmly.She broke their kiss to read his note and slipped the straps of the bra down her shoulders slowly, a shy smile toying at her lips, making her look younger than she was. He underlined “ _ Take it off. _ ” and she did.

Their last stop had been at a farm store on their way out of Denver, headed north and between the two of them the back seat of the quad cab was filled with chicken feed, vitamins for any manner of animal, and a couple of 35 gallon plastic water tanks, nestled together and strapped in around the damned loom.

Back at her house, Maggie backed the truck up to her rear porch, and they unpacked. Or rather Maggie unpacked and Nick took direction and tried to stay out of the way. The loom was maneuvered to fit in the corner of her work room, and Maggie gave Nick a triumphant look. He took one of his new notepads out, a black and white composition pad, and began to write.

_ I think we should get on the road to Boulder in the afternoon tomorrow. I would like to meet with Glen before the committee meeting. _

She read _ ,  _ nodded. "Sure. I have some things to do in Boulder too. Things to do, people to see." Nick's surprise showed on his face. They were sitting in the living room, Nick on the sofa, Maggie on one of the armchairs with her feet up. Nick had offered to help with supper, but Maggie had looked pointedly at his burned hand and said she thought she could manage on her own.

_ What things?  _ He wrote, head typed to the side in puzzlement.

"Just some things to do, mind your business." She responded primly and lifted her chin, a twinkle showing in her eye.

Nick drew a question mark in the air.

"I want to talk to Dick Ellis about livestock if he'd knows anything about them." Maggie paused, and looked at Nick consideringly. "You've got some secret committee business to discuss, huh?" She didn’t care for secrets.

Nick shrugged, he couldn't really talk about it with her, but he wanted to discuss with Glen Bateman the possibility Maggie had introduced that the matter of the dark man might resolve itself. It didn't seem likely to him, otherwise why had they been drawn together the way they had been? But still, if it was a possibility, it would free them all up to focus on survival and worry less about imminent doom. He started to write,  _ Do you know Dick? _ He crossed that out when he saw her talking again. He could ask later.

"How did you end up on that committee anyway? I couldn't ever figure that out. It was a neat trick you all pulled, getting swept into office, but I can't figure out- why you all?" He'd began to write, but she continued, "Mr.Bateman I can see I guess, I heard somewhere he was a sociology professor, and probably has a decent idea how a society would go together-" Nick set his pen down and watched her. "Were you all hand picked by the old woman, or what?"

Nick shrugged and handed her what he had written.  _ Stu and Glen had the idea of a committee of free zone representatives. They approached me to be on it, because I was the one that lead my group to Nebraska and then here to Boulder. I agreed on the provision that Mother Abagail didn't object to us getting organized to get the power back on and other things. _

"In other words, yes. Hand picked- by Mother Abagail or whoever. Fran said Stu had worked in a calculator factory before.” Nick nodded. That was true, but he saw wheels turning in Maggie's head in a way that made him uncomfortable.

_ I don't know if I'm qualified or not, when I met up with Tom and then Ralph people just started looking at me for direction, so I told them what I thought we should do and they did it. _

"When things collapse, there's a power vacuum. Sometimes for years. Until someone steps up to fill it. That doesn't mean they're the right ones for the job. Propaganda is to democracy as a bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." Thinking out loud, she mused, "That's pretty much what happened out west I figure. I'm sure most people over there know the dark man is bad, but they also know he's powerful and that makes them feel safe. Or, safer than being on their own. You all have posters and cookies, he’s got bodies up on telephone poles. But it’s all the same shit-” 

Her gaze clouded, staring into some point in the distance. “It’s the old way of doing things, organization- committee- it’s his way of doing things. He’s organized, he’s very organized. I think adopting the old structure- is adopting his way, more or less.”

Nick frowned, not liking that comparison one bit. They were trying to do what was best for the Zone, didn't she see that? He shrugged and drummed his pen against his pad for a minute.  _ I believe that we’re doing good. You talk as if the committee and the Dark Man are on the same level. I don’t think that’s true. I believe Mother Abagail is good. She believes what she believes, but I believe she’s good, and she’s what we all have in common, even you. _

Maggie read that with an arched eyebrow. “But how do you  _ know _ ?”

Nick looked back at her aghast, mouth open.  _ You don’t? You don’t believe she’s good? _

“Of course I do. I met her too, Nick.” Her nostrils flared hotly when she looked back him, and she folded her arms across her chest. “You all voted to ratify the constitution, the bill of rights, the declaration of independence- all the hallmarks of a  _ rational _ society. A rational government doesn’t center around- dream messages and vanquishing our enemies in the name of God- a rational government has checks and balances and doesn’t take its orders from an invisible man in the sky, using an old woman-” Her words came out quickly, but Nick missed everything after ‘an old woman-’ as he looked down to write quickly, his words a hasty scrawl.

_ Glen says the rational world is dead. That rationalism is dead. So this is the world we’re in. We are trying to serve the needs of the people of the Zone. We’re coping the best we can. We’re going to get the power on. _

“Yeah, I’m sure. Frankly, I agree with Glen.” Her eyes were bright, intensely focused on Nick, and he had the feeling he was being studied closely. “I think the rational society  _ is _ dead- that’s what I’m saying, Nick-” Her face was impassive, but he saw the tension in her jaw. “You want to protect an  _ irrational _ set of ideologies with a  _ rational _ government. It’s fucked since jump street, man- and you have a marshal before you even have any publicized laws for Christ’s sake- that’s secret police shit- ” Maggie’s voice grew hoarse, her whole body starting to tense up. 

“Did you ever think that you all stepping up to build a government might be  _ inhibiting _ people taking care of their own damn selves? That people would realize they have the power to govern their own behaviors without a goddamned marshal if given half a chance? You promote Stu to be the chief of police, or marshal, or whatever you want to call it, you’re telling everyone that this guy- this is the one with the authority to call right from wrong, and if you disagree, you’re wrong- and that this guy is the  _ only _ one who has the authority to tell right from wrong-”

_ We don’t have a secret police. People know Stu and they respect him. He’s a good man and a fair man. I nominated him to be marshal myself, because I believe in him.  _ He wrote furiously, fingers clutched tightly around the pen. 

Her eyes narrowed a little, the opposite effect of what Nick had hoped for. He’d kind of hoped when they got back and finished dinner that she would put on the lacy underthings she’d picked up in Denver, rather than eye him suspiciously as she was now. “That isn’t my  _ point  _ Nick. My point is, it’s not right for there to be a marshal or a sheriff when you don’t have a justice system, or any branch to enact legislation. It’s all just- whatever the fuck you want to make up right now, according to the whims of an old woman who isn’t even in town- and who is apparently directed by her God- which means the laws in the Zone are being dictated by a God that maybe everyone there doesn’t believe in! Congratulations, Vanna, tell him what he’s won- he’s won a theocratic dictatorship!”

_ No one else was doing it goddamnit! Someone has to make rules so that we’re not just a lawless frontier society. There has to be order, and some kind of system set up to keep things running when we get bigger.  _ Nick nearly shoved this into her hands, his eyes hot and angry. She didn’t have any right to be criticizing him, she had opted out of the Zone. And goddamnit, they were doing the best they could on no notice. And he hated that he was now defending the very ideas that he’d found so uncomfortable Authority. Organization. But he felt backed into a corner by her arguments, trying to defend what they were trying to do. Couldn’t she see that it was so people would be safe?

“Yeah- which is fine- in a  _ rational  _ society- which no longer exists- so what are you supposed to do? Have a witch trial when someone gets out of line? Throw them off a cliff and if they fly they’re a witch, and if they die, oops, they were innocent?”

_ Our people aren’t like that-  _ He scribbled.

“How do you know what ‘our’ people are like? We’re an amalgam of whoever was left- ‘we’re’ anybody-”

Nick frowned and wrote deliberately, making her wait while he formed his words. _You’re not one of our people. __You_ _opted out of the Zone._

The ferocious emotion drained from Maggie’s face when she read this, and she grew very still. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears, blocking out any other sound in the room and she looked back at him. Nick sat up straighter, defying her to continue yelling at him, to go on with her diatribe, collecting his thoughts. They  _ were _ doing good. He knew they were. And Mother Abagail was good too, just as the dark man was evil. And it was all very easy to sit and poke holes in things from the outside, when she wasn’t the one building, trying to create a whole society from scratch.

“Excuse me Nick, I’m need to go check on the animals in the barn.” She stood and pushed off of the armchair, crossed the room quickly before the sting of hot tears could make her vision blur. The barn was dark and still, rain drumming quietly on the tin roof. At one end, open to the pasture beyond the alpacas nestled together in a furry mound, heads poking up out of the heap, long rabbit-like ears twitching at the sound of Maggie’s approaching steps. The dim barn doubled in her vision, then trebled, everything going watery as she huffed through tearing apart the hay bales and refilling water troughs from the barrel.

_ Shit. _ Nick thought as he watched her stand and nearly sprint from the room. He was still irritated with her, and her nitpicking, but he hadn’t meant to lash out at her. He was tired, frustrated with trying to start a country from scratch, and she didn’t seem to even think it was worth it. Worse, he didn’t want to think they could be going in the wrong direction. Taxes- they had ratified the constitution, and it talked about taxes, and senate- representatives- they didn’t even really have states right now, did they? Glen claimed to have a plan for all that, but Nick himself was at a loss.

Nick stood and looked out into the yard. Empty, save the blueish glowing fairy lights that were strung between the house and the barn. They swayed softly in the drizzly rain, casting moving shadows. Nick shivered faintly and reached for a rain slicker before heading out in the direction of the barn. He turned on a battery powered lantern and used it to check the stalls where the cows stood, chewing lazily, then the pens on the opposite where both grown pigs were sleeping, along with a nest of piglets. At the other end, he knocked against the wall and a number of heads poked up, wide brown eyes reflecting the light of his lantern like warm stars.  _ Was she even here? _ He wished he could call out to her, or hear if she called back to him, but all he could do was look. 

A handful of animals stirred uneasily as Maggie came out of one of the stalls, hoisting a forkful of hay and made her way toward Nick. He held the lantern up to see her face better, in the hay and animal scented barn. His heart tightened uncomfortably when the lantern revealed her puffed eyes and red nose. Hanging the lantern from a hook he took a pad out.  _ I’m sorry. I don’t want to argue with you. _

“All that shit you ratified- means it’s a free country, Nick. I should be able to speak my mind and- still be- a part of the world-” She lifted her chin and he winced to see another tear roll down her cheek. “Or are you going to decide I’m no longer welcome in Boulder because I think the system is fucked up?” 

He shook his head slowly. He didn’t want that, he didn’t want a police state, he just- wanted the people of Boulder to be safe. To not have to be afraid at night of the Dark Man, and to be able to protect them by finding out what was going on in the west. Nick tipped his head back toward the house and raised his eyebrows. 

Inside the house she sat again, one leg pulled up in front of her on the chair and watched Nick hollowly. “I know my reasons for being out here, Nick. They’re not going to change. I have a lot of problems with the little- stunt you guys pulled to get elected. Hand choosing who you wanted and sweeping in without- any real democratic process. If you want to set up a theocracy- then fucking call it that, man. Don’t call it a republic when things are being run by a bunch of tin gods. That shit doesn’t represent me. Maybe you are right. Maybe I’m not one of you.” 

Nick sighed and flipped back to his pad, circling  _ I don’t want to argue with you. _ He tapped it lightly and tipped his head to the side. If he’d had an actual olive branch, he’d have offered that instead. He didn’t like fighting with her, it made him wish he’d never come here. Mostly what he didn’t care for, was her easy way of seeing the holes in things, pointing them out to him. Problems that would become more serious issues in the future that he hadn’t thought a way out of yet. He’d been so concerned with laws, he hadn’t even thought about damned  _ taxes. _ He groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. Judges, taxes- wasn’t there something about financial compensation to representatives? Well, money was everywhere, but what was the point being paid in something which was now completely useless? Christ, he hadn’t even read the Constitution himself before they ratified it in the meeting.

A gentle hand on his shoulder drew Nick’s attention and he moved his hands away from his face to see Maggie looking at him wryly. 

“I don’t want to fight with you either. But neither am I going to keep my mouth shut when I take issue with something.” Nick sighed and took her hand gently, nodding. He reached with his other hand and wrote,  _ I’m starting to see that. _

“Well, good. I wasn’t a- I don’t- look, if whoever is in charge knows what they’re doing, I guess that’s okay. Dick Ellis- he’s a smart guy, and great with animals. If he wanted to be- chief of animal medicines and husbandry or- whatever- great. It’s what he knows. He can back it up with- something tangible. But a rubber stamp from a God that only talks through an old woman who isn’t even in Boulder anymore?” She shook her head firmly and Nick squeezed her hand. “I do love her too, but I can love someone and disagree with them. And with her- I do. I really do.”

_ We didn’t know Harold was going to motion we be voted in, in toto. That was a surprise to us too. _ Nick nudged her elbow gently with his pad and she read, and he thought he saw an eyebrow quirk faintly. 

“You don’t think that’s- weird?” She had met Harold, briefly. He gave her the creeps. The same sense she relied on in her own years of wandering, to know who was safe and who wasn’t went off in alarm bells when she met Harold. Harold and his grin. 

Nick shrugged. He did think it was weird. He didn’t like Harold, but he couldn’t put his finger on why. He just made him feel anxious.  _ I don’t know why he did that. I just know it worked out. _

“Mmm, so you say. I guess that depends a lot on how you define ‘worked out’ doesn’t it?”

Nick shrugged. He didn’t have an answer for that. 


End file.
